O^^i f^^o^^ 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



BURNS STATUE, 



rvlCPHERSON LEGACV 



CITY OF ALBANY. 



Erected ill \]'asliiiii:^toii Park September oO^ ISSS, 



ALBANY: 

WEED, PARSONS & CO., PRINTERS. 
1S89. 



V ' 



-=■3 



t^'^ls 



21109 




^he: Barns ^taitcie. 



The bronze statue of Robert Burns, which now adorns 
Washington park, Albany, N. Y., is a worthy monument to 
the genius of the poet, and a fitting testimonial of the love 
and pride which the Scot-Americans of the city and country 
still cherish for the land of their nativity. The inception 
of the project to rear a monument to the memory of Burns 
ante-dates the incorporation of the legacy for that purpose 
in the will of the late Miss Mary McPherson. It had for 
many years been a cherished hope in the minds of a number 
of the Scotch citizens of Albany. As early as in the primal 
days of the Albany Caledonian Club, a small nucleus fund 
was set aside, and a number of the members of the club 
verbally pledged themselves to contribute to the further 
support of the movement should it ever appear practicable. 
The bequest of Mary McPherson obviated the necessity for 
an appeal to the generosity of the public-spirited and Burns- 
loving Scotchmen ; and has lianded down to future genera- 
tions of Albany the name of this branch of the McPherson 
family when the death of the last male representative had 
left it all but extinct. 

There is nothing of romance or remarkable incident in the 
history of this humble Scotch family. So far as their ances- 



4 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

try can be traced they were of the " Highlands," and pos- 
sibly came of the great clan McPherson. It is, however, 
doubtful if the family was in any way related to that 
of the poet James McPherson, whose name has come 
down to us in connection with the Ossianic poems, al- 
though from the poet's native place, Inverness, Lachlan 
McPherson, a carpenter, emigrated about a century ago. 
Said Lachlan McPherson married one Mary Mitchell and 
settled in Dundee, where were born John and Mary Mc- 
Pherson. In 1 8 19 Lachlan McPherson emigrated with 
his family to America, and came to Albany where he 
soon after secured the position of janitor of the State 
House. Here he passed a life of thrift and quiet. He be- 
came prominent as an old Scotch resident and was among 
the early managers of the Albany St. Andrews' Society, of 
which organization, from 1837 to 1840, he was also treasurer. 
Soon after the last-named date he died and his son John 
succeeded to his position as janitor. John never married 
but with his sister Mary continued to live on, much after the 
manner of their parents. It was a typical Scotch family. 
Their tastes were simple and their wants few ; hence what 
was gained was kept. John, who was an intelligent 
thoughtful, if uncultured man, is said never to have failed 
to secure and peruse his Edinburgh Rcviczv for a period of 
thirty years. Mary, who was as shrewd and saving as eiiher 
her father or brother, on the death of the latter, August 28, 
1 88 1, came into possession of the family estate, amounting 
to between thirty and forty thousand dollars. This she held 
practically unimpaired to the day of her own demise on the 
6th day of P'ebruary, 1886. Though economical even to pe- 
nuriousness, Mary McPherson, by a strange whimsicality, 
never appeared to care what became of her property after her 



BU/^NS STATUE. 5 

death ; thouijh she was well aware that there were none left 
to claim kinship either on this or the other side of the 
Atlantic. It was only three years before her death, March 
14, 1883, that she accepted the counsel oi her intimate 
friends and advisers, and made a testamentary disposition 
of her property. Althoui^h not original, the idea of erecting 
a monument to the memory of Robert Burns met with her 
hearty approval, and the added desire of perpetuating the 
name of her family led her to make the principal bequest of 
her will the one for the erection of such a memorial. She 
only specified that it should be known as the " McPherson 
Legacy to the City of Albany," and that it should be of a 
character to do honor to her country's bard and be a 
worthy tribute to the memory of the McPherson family. 
The clause in her will embodying this idea reads as fol- 
lows : 

All the rest and remainder of my estate, both real and personal, 
I give, devise and bequeath to my executors under the certain 
rules and regulations: 

First — That they shall erect, or cause to be erected, in Wash- 
ington ])ark of the city of Albany, by and with the consent of the 
commissioners of said park, a monument to the memory of 
Robert Burns. 

Second — It is my desire that my executf)rs will get a monument 
worthy of the man, an ornament to the ])ark, and an lionor to the 
land of my birth. 

Third — That if the commissioners of \Vashington park accept 
of said monument it will then be known as the McPherson legacy 
to the city of Albany. 

Fourth — I hereby authorize, empower and direct my said 
executors, or the survivors of them, to sell, transfer and convey all 
my property, real or personal, and convert the same into money, 
and use, employ and expend the same for the uses and purposes 



6 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

hereintofore mentioned, and for that purpose they are authorized 
to make suitable and sufficient deeds and conveyances thereof. 

This with the nomination of John Dingwall, florist, and 
Peter Kinnear, brass founder, concluded the document. 
These two executors of the last will and testament of Mary 
McPherson were old residents of the city, and bore an en- 
viable reputation for sterling integrity and unswerving 
strength of character. Mr. Dingwall was well advanced in 
years a:nd much enfeebled, so that the active work in the 
administration and settlement of the estate devolved upon 
Mr. Kinnear. The provision of the will respecting the 
Burns statue was in particular left to the care of Mr Kin- 
near; as he had not only been one of the earliest and most 
enthusiastic supporters of the project, but had also, after its 
suggestion by Mr. Dingwall, been mainly instrumental in 
persuading the somewhat erratic maker of the will to make 
such a disposition of a portion of her estate. Mr. Dingwall, 
therefore, knowing the interest of his co-executor in the 
monument bequest, and feeling every confidence in his good 
judgment, soon after the completion of the other details of 
the admininistration, withdrew, leaving Mr. Kinnear to exe- 
cute the trust alone. With characteristic promptness and 
energy the zealous brass founder immediately set out in 
quest of a sculptor. Early in March, 1886, he went to 
New York and consulted with William Hart, the eminent 
landscape and animal painter, who, after some deliberation, 
recommended artist Charles Calverley, formerly of Albany, 
now a resident of New York. A visit was made to Mr. 
Calverley's studio, corner of Fourth avenue and Twenty- 
fourth street, and an agreement entered into with him to 
furnish a model for acceptance or rejection, wholly at his 
own expense in case of its not proving satisfactory. Mr. 



BURNS STATUE. 

Kinnear had early taken into his confidence and asked ad- 
vice of ihe representative Scots of Albany, and on the ist 
of May, 1886, invited a committee of them to accompany 
h.m to New York on a tour of inspection. This committee 
comprised, Messrs. James Lawrence, Donald McDonald 
Andrew McMurray and Allan Gilmour. A day was spent 
in viewing the numerous statues in the public places of the 
metropolis, particular attention being paid to those of Burns 
and Scott in Central Park. The model at this time was 
still in the hands of the artist in process of construction 
Three months later it was privately shipped to Albany, and 
Mr. Kinnear thereupon invited a second committee of 
Scotch residents to meet him at his Madison avenue resi- 
dence. When they had assembled their host conducted 
them to an upper room, when he unexpectedly unveiled the 
artist's conception of what would constitute a suitable statue. 
Without knowing whose hand had wrought the work of art 
before them, the model was inspected and criticised on its 
merits for acceptance or rejection. The opinion expressed 
was unanimous in favor of adopting the design and awarding 
the contract to the designer as the appended document 
shows : 



Albany, N. Y. Ai/gi/sf, i8S6. 

To the Executors of the Estate of the late Miss Mary MeFheruw 
deceased: ' ' 

Gentlemen -Having had the pleasure of viewing a model of 
the monument proposed to be erected in Washington park this 
city, in memory of Scotland's great poet, Robert Burns; and bein^. 
convinced by what the sculptor has accomplished in this model 
hat he IS thoroughly competent to carry the work to its comple- 
|on m the most satisfactory manner: We, the undersigned, would 
therefore, most respectfully request that you will award him the 
contract, feeling assured that in his hands this monument will be 



8 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

a credit to the city of Albany, and to you as representatives of 
the lady who so liberally provided for its erection. 

(Signed) THOMAS McCREDIE, 

ALLAN GILMOUR, 

JAMES McLaren, 

ANDREW McMURRAY, 
JAMES LAWRENCE, 
GEORGE HENDRIE, 
JOHN F. MONTIGNANI, 
JAMES McNAUGHTON. 

This unanimous expression of opinion in favor of the 
conception and design of the artist was deemed by Mr. 
Kinnear sufficient indorsement of his own judgment to war- 
rant the selection of Mr. Calverley. Accordingly on the 25th 
day of August, 1886, the contract papers were drawn up 
and signed. This award to Sculptor Calverley was singularly 
appropriate, because of the fact that he was an yVlbanian. 
He was born of English parentage, in the Capital City of the 
Empire State, November i, 1833. As a boy. Sculptor Cal- 
verley was noted for his assiduous application to any thing 
he undertook, and his talents were early manifest, even 
while but an apprentice of John Dixon, marble cutter. So 
evident were his gifts that personal friends interested them- 
selves in his behalf, secured his release from his apprentice- 
ship, and his entrance as an art student to the studio of 
Sculptor E. D. Palmer. For fourteen years he worked and 
studied, and in that time did considerable of the detail work 
on some of Mr. Palmer's greatest productions. In 1866 
Mr Calverley married Miss Susan E. Hand, of Sandy Hill, 
and in 1S70 removed to New York. He toiled faithfully along 
the line of his ideals, ]:)a}'ing more attention to the realiza- 
tion of artistic than pecuniary success. His chief produc- 



BUANS STATUE. 9 

tions prior to the Burns statue were busts of John Brown, 
EHas Howe, and Horace Greely. 

After securing the contract the artist at once commenced 
a course of stud}' preparatory to a still more intimate 
knowledge of his subject, and alternating labor upon the 
full-sized working cla}- model of the statue with this study, 
the conscientious and painstaking scul[)tor toiled on for the 
larger part of two years on what is thus far, without doubt, 
the greatest work of his life, and one which any modern ar- 
tist, howsoever famous, might be proud to own. 

At last even the fastidious taste of the artist was satisfied 
to let the complete model stand for the inspection and ap- 
proval of the committee appointed to accept or reject it. 
This committee, chosen from among the members of the 
St. Andrew's Society and Caledonian Club and other citi- 
zens of Albany, comprised : Messrs. Peter Kinnear, Andrew 
McMurray, James Lawrence, James McNaughton, Allan 
Gilmour, John F. Montignani, Edward Ogden and U. S. 
Surveyor of Customs A. D. Cole, who represented the 
mayor and city officials. In addition to these, as a sort of 
advisory board, were Wm. Hart, of whom mention has been 
made, Joseph Laing, the skilled engraver of New York, A. 
M. Stewart, the editor of the Scottish American, and An- 
drew Carnegie, the millionaire iron manufacturer, of Pitts- 
burg, Pa , also known as the author of '• Triumphant De- 
mocracy." (3n the 26th of April, 1888, the inspection was 
made, and though some, like Mr. Carnegie, had seen many 
busts and statues of the poet, yet there was not a dissen- 
tient voice raised against the opinion that it was the best 
statue of Burns yet produced. 

Meanwhile at Aberdeen, Scotland, a pedestal of Scotch 
granite was being cut, and at Quinc)', Mass., a massive base 



lo HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

stone of gray American granite was also in course of prepara- 
tion. As statue and pedestal were thus being pushed for- 
ward to a successful completion Mr. Kinnear was kept busy 
arranging all the preliminary and attendant details of the 
program to be observed at the unveiling. The first object of 
attention was the laying of the corner-stone of the founda- 
tion June 30, 1888. It had been decided to have it laid 
with Masonic honors, because of Burns prominent connec- 
tion with the order. Accordingly an invitation was extended 
to the Grand Lodge of the State of New York, which was 
promptly accepted. It was expected to have the American 
granite base ready to place in position as the capstone over 
the foundation and corner-stone, but just before it should 
have been shipped from the yards at Quincy, Mass., it was 
accidently broken in handling and another had to be cut. 
This, at the last moment necessitated the procuring of a 
small granite block from the Capitol yard which was used 
at the corner stone laying and remained in place until the 
new base stone was received July 30. 

The ceremonies at the laying of the corner-stone were of a 
very interesting character and excited much favorable com- 
ment. A parade of the Commandery and Blue lodges in full 
regalia clad, acting as an escort to the Grand Lodge officers, 
headed by Right Worshipful John W. Vroman, Acting 
Grand Master, was made through the principal streets lead- 
ino- to the park previous to and following the ceremony. A 
large number of spectators from within and without the city 
assembled about the monument site and witnessed the cere- 
monies which were in accord with the Masonic ritual of the 
Grand Lodge ; save where Brother Peter Kinnear, as execu- 
tor, presented a silver trowel to Acting Grand Master Vro- 
man, with the appended appropriate presentation speech : 



BURNS STATUE. n 

Most Worshipful Sir — A most pleasing duty has come to me 
through force of circumstances over which I had but little control. 
A venerable and modest old lady of this commonwealth, of unas- 
suming manners, born across the sea, of humble parentage, trained 
as were all her relatives, to honesty, thrift and industry, living for 
over sixty years in our goodly city of Albany, by the most patient 
and long-continued labors her brother and herself accumulated 
quite a sum of money, a portion of which she wisely set apart to 
build a monument to the memory of one of her own countrymen, 
whom she had learned to love and respect for the manly and inde- 
pendent traits of character he had shown in his works. And she 
loved to read and talk about "Our ain Robbie Burns." 

" Burns, thou hnst given us a name, 

To shield us from the taunts of scorn, 
The plant that creeps amid the soil. 
A glorious tiower hath born. 

■' Before the proudest of the earth. 
We stand with an uplifted brow. 
Like us thou wast a toil-worn man. 
But we are nobler now." 

But while intensely Scotch in her manners and habits, and fully 
intending that the monument sliould and would be an honor and 
a pride to her countrymen and women, yet none realized more 
fully that it would also be an ornament and beauty, of which she 
felt justly proud, to her adopted city, and now, sir, as executor of 
the late Miss McPherson's estate, having a sjicred trust in charge, 
also knowing the high esteem in which our loved poet held the 
brethren of the mystic tie, it seemed to me eminently proper that 
the corner-stone of this monument should be laid by the craft of 
which in his life-time he was such a distinguished member. I 
now, therefore, present you, most worthy sir, with this instrument, 
so that you may be enabled to so cement this stone that it may be 
one homogeneous mass and last until the prediction of him to 
whom this monument is to be erected shall be fulfilled: 

"That man to man, the world o'er. 
Shall brothers be for a' that." 

An address descriptive of the life and character of Bums, 



12 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

delivered by Acting Deputy Grand Master James Ten Eyck 
of Albany, concluded the program. 

Early in July the Scotch granite pedestal was finished 
and about the middle of the month was shipped in the 
steamship Nevada, reaching Albany on the 26th of the 
month. On the ist day of August both it and the Ameri- 
can granite base, under the direction of Sculptor Calverley, 
were set up in Washington park. 

Though the work of casting the statue was vigorously 
prosecuted, it was not until the morning of August 29th 
that it reached Albany. Mr. Calverley accompanied it and 
superintended its erection upon the pedestal. 

The work of raising a lasting memorial to the name and 
fame of Scotland's " Ploughman Bard " in one of the oldest 
and most historic cities of the United States had thus been 
carried on to successful completion. The fitting celebration 
and commemoration of the event alone remained, and for 
this ample provision had already been made. 

The date of the unveiling had been fixed to coincide with 
the annual gathering of the North American United Cale- 
donian Association, and hundreds of invitations had been 
sent out to Scotch associations and prominent individu- 
als in all parts of the country; while many found their way 
across the sea to the land of the pibroch and heather. The 
clans from near and afar began gathering on the afternoon 
and evening of the 29th, and continued to arrive during the 
morning hours of the 30th, till kilt and bonnet, plaid, and 
heather, and thistle were familiar sights on all the streets of 
the old Dutch city. 

The day's program included, as features, a parade of the 
clubs and delegations present, through several of the prin- 
cipal streets and around the park to the statue ; the unveil- 



B URNS S TA TUE \ 3 

ing of the same, and a subsequent banquet and entertain- 
ment. The parade was formed on Hudson avenue and 
Eagle street at 3 P. M., by Grand Marshal James McNaugh- 
ton and his Chief of Staff, Major Lewis Balch, assisted by 
the following aids : Capt. Andrew C Bayne, Robert C. 
James, Charles C. Mackay, Russell Lyman, Frank Van 
Benthuysen and James D. McKay. Those represented in 
the two divisions commanded respectively by Division- 
Marshals W. B. Smith, of Philadelphia, and Chief Andrew 
McMurray, of Albany, were the Caledonian and other 
national organizations of Scotchmen, enumerated as follows : 

Societies of Troy, Holyoke, Pittston, Scranton, New 
York, Hudson county, Warren, Paterson, Newark, the Cale- 
donian Societies of Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, London, 
the Scots' Charitable Society of Boston, St. Andrew's Soci- 
ety of Detroit, St. Andrew's Scottish Society of Buffalo, 
St. Andrew's Society of Milwaukee, Scottish Society of 
New York, the order of Scottish Clans, headed by Royal 
Chief Kinnear, who marched with Clan MacFarlane of 
Albany, Clans McNaughton and McPherson of Rochester, 
Clan Sutherland of Buffalo, Clan McDuff of Chicago, and 
Clan McKenzie of New York. 

The Philadelphia Club had the right of line, while the St. 
Andrew's Society of Albany, with the local Caledonian 
Club as escort, brought up the rear. The carriages for the 
specially invited guests were in this last section, and the 
carriage of Peter Kinnear, the President of the Society, 
flanked by pipers L'eland and Ross, who blew "with lungs 
of leather " during the entire march. The occupants of the 
carriages were: Peter Kinnear, Charles Calverley, A. M. 
Stewart, Peter Ross, Rev. Drs. Wm. S. Smart, Lorimer, 
Robert H. Collyer and Lyell, Recorder Hessberg, Wm. H. 



14 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

Hart, Charles J. Buchanan, John H. Farrell, John Shedden, 
Robert Oliver, James Irvine, Rev. Robert Court, G. M. 
Rose, Robert Clark, John Patterson, W. B. Smith and party, 
John Booth, John Donaldson and John L. Hamilton. 

Arriving at the statue site the line halted and formed in 
open ranks to permit the passage of the rear guard to the 
platform. There, beside and round about the noble figure 
of the poet, yet draped with America's starry banner, an 
immense throng of interested spectators numbering several 
thousand had already gathered, which spreading out over 
the lawns of the immediate vicinity covered the paths and 
driveways far back even to distant terraces. Upon and 
about the speaker's platform the following well-known Scots 
from other localities were noted : Rev. Dr. Court, Lowell ; 
John Patterson, Andrew Patterson, A. M. Stewart, J. L. 
Hamilton, William Hogg, John Young, W. McAdie, Colo- 
nel Joseph Laing, New York ; George Gebbie, George Good- 
fellow, W. B. Smith, John Shedden, W. Mushet, Philadel- 
phia ; Judge Patten, John Pettie, R. Fleming, Detroit; 
Robert Clark, Wm. Murdoch, Peter McEwan, Wm. Gard- 
ner, John McPhee, Hugh Watt, Chicago ; Wm. Rutherford, 
W. Wallach, A. A. Stevenson, James Wright, Montreal ; 
David Walker, G. M. Rose, Wm. Adamson, W. D. Mcin- 
tosh, W. Henderson, A. M. Oliphant, James Wright, A. 
Fraser, A. Lamont, Toronto ; Thomas Waddell, Robert 
Wallace, James Notman, Neil Dobbie, John Struthers, 
Pittston, Pa. ; J. McEwan, T. Callander, A. Archibald, J. 
McLean, J. F. Ewing, Alex. Miller, John White, Co- 
hoes, N. Y. ; Thomas Barrowman, James Moir, W. Gard- 
ner, Scranton ; Paul Buchanan, R. Steel, James Holmes, A. 
McLaren, Newark; J. W. Jones, Robert Reid, Sr., London, 
Ont. ; Rev. A. C. Smith, John McMutrie, Wilkesbarre ; 



BURNS STATUE. 15 

Evan McColl, Kingston, Ont ; R. Hogg, Maine, N. Y. 
(nephew of the Ettrick Shepherd) ; Royal Chief Kinnear, 
James Anderson, R. C. McTaggart, VV. R. Mihie, Lachlan 
WaUace, John Black, James Maitland, Boston ; Senator 
Uc Naughton, G. Douglas, R. Gray, W. J. McPherson, Ro- 
chester; W. F. Thomson, Matteawan ; D. M. Henderson, 
Baltimore ; T. Stewart, W. L. Campbell, J. A. Morton, W. 
Hamilton, Schenectady ; T. N. Allan, Andrew Martin, War- 
ren, Mass. ; G. Beaumont, P. Carnochan, Springfield, Mass. ; 
Thomas Rae, Sr., Holyoke, Mass. ; R. Thomson, Altamont, 
N. Y. ; J. Anderson, T. Stirling, James Donaldson, J. Ken- 
nedy, David Little, John Shearer, James Hutchison, John 
McKinnon, Alex. Mcllreath, Amsterdam, N. Y. ; Samuel 
Laurie, Auburn ; J. B. Hendrie, Luzerne, N. Y. ; Dr. Per 
guson. Glens Falls, N. Y. ; Daniel Fisher, Davenport, N. 
Y. ; Thomas Morgan, Wm. Currie, Archie Middlemas, J. 
Lawrie, Milwaukee ; Robert Oliver, Oswego ; R. Adams, 
Fall River; Rev. W. C. Brown, J. Cant, T. Alexan- 
der, Clarksville, N. Y. ; John McLay, Great Barrington, 
Mass. ; David Chalmers, Renfrew, Mass. ; J. Millar, Brook- 
lyn ; M. Semple, Green Island, N. Y. ; Donald McKay, J. 
McKay, James Campbell, W. Easson, A. Cunningham, R. 
Goudie, A. Sims, J. Allan, David Beattie, Troy; W. A. 
Knox, Brewsters, N. Y. ; D. Archibald, Lansingburg, N. Y. ; 
J. Alexander, Columbia, S. C. ; Thomas Fleming, Peter 
Dow, Hartford, Conn. 

The exercises attendant upon the unveiling were opened 
by an address of Mr. Peter Kinnear, who gave therein a 
short sketch of the history of the McPherson family, of 
whose estate he was the executor and whose legacy to the 
city was about to be unveiled. To the end of his address 
he appended an introduction of the orator of the day. Rev. 



1 6 HISIORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

Robert H. Collyer, who advanced and paid the following 
glowing tribute to the memory of Burns : 

Fricihh and Fellow- Citizens : When tlie invitation reached me 
a few days ago to come to Albany and try to say some word which 
would fit this fine occasion, I said at once I would come, because 
I felt it would be what ministers call a labor of love to visit your 
fair city on such an errand — to speak to you about Robert Burns, 
and to the sons of bonnie Scotland, who would gather here in his 
name, who holds all good Scotchmen by the heart strings wher- 
ever they may wander, and above all it would be a labor of love 
for his sake, in whose memory this work has been done you dedicate 
to-day. and of whom it has been well said by one our great citi- 
zens now numbered among the immortals that " whatever may be 
our ancestry we are all proud of Scotland, and because we are 
men we love Robert Burns. I have felt one touch of trouble, 
indeed, in thinking of what I could say to you, and it is this, that 
you should not have chosen some man more able to meet the de- 
mand you hold the right to make on any man at such a time to 
speak of him, who has no peer in the splendid race from which 
he sprang. Some of you will remember the time when a hundred 
years had come and gone since he was born, and what multitudes 
came together in the old world and the new to speak of him and 
sing of him, and to dwell on the sad and painful story of his life. 
And I can well remember how I was in Scotland some dozen 
years after the great Burns Centennial, when they met to celebrate 
that of the one Scottish man of genius, we name in the same 
breath, the great and good Walter Scott. And I noticed what 
effort was made in Edinburgh, where the traditions of Scott are 
at their best, to have something there of an ec^ual splendor and 
significance; and how the significance was there, but it took quite 
another meaning, for the radiance resting on Abbotsford hung 
low and pale beside the glory which rested on the Auld clay big- 
gin in Ayrshire, and the poet of feudalism, great and noble as his 
genius was, could command no such homage as the poet of free- 
dom and of the common human life; the man of the people, who, 
in the " Cotter's Saturday Night," painted a picture of a poor 
man's home, such as even Shakespeare never dreamed of, and set 
it in a light sweeter and fairer than ever rested on a jxilace, and 



BURNS STATUE. 17 

crowned your life and mine with the glory of " A Man's a Man for 
a' That." The peasant poet, poor himself, who found such mighty 
tilings to say to us in his death grip with poverty for all poor men 
and women to take to their hearts, and sang such songs of the worth 
of the poorest, if they be but honest and true — such strains sound 
to me like our own Declaration of Independence set to a music 
which makes all who can hear and feel it hold up their heads and step 
out with a stronger and surer tread in the grand upward march of 
humanity. Still I am here, not to apologize for my coming, but to 
do the best I may, and will begin by touching very briefly the story 
of his life, and then try to see how this again helps us to understand 
something of his genius, and will begin by asking you to turn with 
me for a moment to the first year in this century, and to the old 
churchyard at St. Michael's at Dumfries in Scotland, where we 
find one grave covered all over with Scotch thistles, and to notice, 
as we easily may, how they have not been left to grow there by a 
worthless sexton, but have been started there and tended as if they 
were so many slips from the rose of Sharon. That was the grave 
of Robert Burns when the century came in. They had laid him 
to rest there not very long before in what should have been his 
fair, full prime to the music of the " Dead March in Saul." And 
as the music went sobbing into his home it would meet the wail of 
a babe just entering the world its father had left. There were five 
children then in that desolate home and hardly a sixpence to buy 
a pound of meal and a pipkin of milk to feed them; while if death 
had not taken the father the sheriff wanted him for debt, and the 
grave, so far as we can see, was his only refuge from the jail. 
Englishmen and Scotchmen, too, in those times were voting in- 
credible sums and salaries and pensions to no end of people be- 
cause they were the offspring of the bastards of Charles II, and 
for equally delectable reasons, and that royal blackguard, George 
IV, was drawing more than half a million dollars a year for being 
a great deal meaner and more stupid than his father, George III, 
of blessed memory. Well, they made Burns a gauger on a salary 
of about ;£s° ^ y^3.r, with ;^2o more if he had good luck among 
those who got on the shady side of the revenue, and for this he 
often had to travel two hundred miles a week in all sorts of weather, 
and Scotch weather at that. And when he fell sick once they 
would have reduced his salary by one-half had not another man 



1 8 HISTORICAL SKETCH OT THE 

done his work for love's sake and pity. Stobie was the man's 
name. It is not a handsome name, and falls no more musically 
on the ear than Smith or CoUyer, but I think that if one should 
ever meet a Stobie and a Gordon and a Douglas together, I for 
one should feel like taking off my hat to the Stobie. And 
when they had laid Burns under the green sward they did not 
think it worth their while to mark the spot with a stone. Those 
thistles were the only token and sign to tell you where he lay, and 
I do not know who planted and tended them, but I do know he 
was also a poet in his heart and that was his poem. And then at 
last his poor widow, Bonnie Jean, out of her widow's mite put up a 
small headstone with his name on it, and the dates of his birth and 
death. And we should find other reasons for this neglect on the 
part of his own countrymen to honor Burns as he deserved to be 
honored beside these that make us ready now to cry shame on 
them, if this was the time and place to tell the whole sad story of 
the last years of his life. But I suppose you know that story as 
well as I do, and how natural it would be for a good many of those 
who had once held him in esteem to conclude it was best that he 
should be speedily forgotten in the grave. So they would imagine, 
but the truth they nursed was this, that there was still a Rol)ert 
Burns they could not bury any more than they could bury all the 
sunshine or all the daisies or all the birds that sing in the blue 
arches of heaven. Plowmen and shepherds and men at the bench 
and loom were reading the poems he had written, and to hide them 
away, as an old Scotchman told me once, from the ministers and 
elders of the kirk, for fear of what would happen if it was known 
they had the book. Then Burns began to be heard of far and 
wide. He went where the Bible went, and wh.ere Bunyan and 
Shakespeare were read, and so at least at the end of that hundred 
years we gathered in his name hundreds of thousand strong all 
round the world. 

And so the sin and sorrow and shame might be buried, let us 
hope, and their sepulchre be lost as his was who was buried over 
against Bethpeor in Moab; but never what has made him so dear 
to the heart of Scotland and of man. The songs such as no man 
has sung beside that enter as intimately into the heart of a mouse 
as of a hero, the perfect ffowers of genius which stand so thick 
and bloom so sweetly in the rustic peasant garden fresh as blue- 



BURNS STATUE. 19 

bells, pearled with dew and breezy as the woods in a fresh June 
wind. Robert Burns struck a cord nearer to the common life and 
truer to it than any man who has ever felt after its music. In our 
strong Saxon stock, it is as natural that he should be near to us 
and dear as he is as that the grass should grow in the meadows 
or the broom on the brae. Here, then, is the grave, and now let 
us turn to the cradle. Born in what we would call a shanty, he 
tells us how a blast of Janwar' win' blew hansel in on Robin, and 
blew to such a ])urpose that the house was like to come down, and 
they had to run with him to another hut near by for shelter. The 
son of a farmer in a very small way who had to work like a slave 
to pay his rent and of a mother who could sing you the ballads of 
old Scotland so sweetly, that as one used to say on our side the 
border she "would fetch a duck out of water to hear her," a 
backward boy at his books and not over bright at any thing, so 
that old Murdoch, the schoolmaster, used to say, " Gilbert Burns 
and no' Robert was the laddie to make his mark, and Gilbert 
could make poetry while Robert could hardly make pot-hooks, 
and how Robert came to be a poet and Cxilbert just naebody by 
comparison, was mair than ever a schoolmaster could tell ye," 
and Robert knew no more about it than the dominie, no more 
than Will Shakespeare the Stratford black sheep, no more than 
David, the shepherd boy of Bethlehem. Then he was the pretty 
black-eyed boy eating his meal and kail, doing his chores and 
getting his " lear with the mither to cossett him now and then, 
but not often, and to call him ma bonnie laddie," and when he 
had time, with his father to tell him all about the thistles and 
daisies, and mice and sheep, and to come to him on the hill when 
he had to mind the sheep, and the thunder was abroad in the 
heavens, and bid him not to fear, for the Lord was in the thunder, 
and he loved well to hear his voice. Then the youth of seven- 
teen was working in the field among the reapers, the youth and 
the maid taking a rig between them, as the custom was since I re- 
member, and the maid begins to sing an old Scotch ballad, and 
the youth blushes and says he thinks he can make a ballad if the 
maid will sing it, and the maid blushes and says if he will she will 
try, and so the ballad was written, and this is the first flash from 
the dark, where it lay, of the matchless gem of genius in the heart 
of Robert Burns, the Cairngorm which was to outshine all the 



20 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

treasures of Golconda. Then the young man is jjloughing on a 
bitter winter's day with four horses, and with John Bkme at the 
liead of the team, as John Blane v.'ould tell the story sixty years 
after. John turns his head and suddenly sees a mouse torn out 
in the burrow, nest and all, and with a boy's instinct " goes," as 
we say, for the mouse, and with one swift leap Burns had John 
by the collar, and had shaken him into his place with a word 
John never forgot, but I will not repeat. 

And then the old man would tell you how he went about the 
plowing like a man in a dream all day long. The spell was on 
him, and he could no more resist than he could resist the roll of 
the planet. And when he came home his sister saw a great light 
in his eyes and knew what it meant, for this was not the first time 
she had seen the light, and next morning she went up to his gar- 
ret and found the great and wonderful poem " To a Mouse," 
which I have no time to read. It was when these spells were on 
him that the things were done that storm your heart and mine by 
their infinite, tender beauty; but still I may say as I pass on that 
this passion of tenderness toward all things that run and fly was 
by no means like that of his countryman who wrote " The man of 
feeling," of which his own wife said he had put all his feelings 
into his book. Burns could not bear to hunt or shoot any thing. 
All he could do was to go now and then fishing; but no doubt he 
felt as all good anglers have done from Walton down — that this 
was just as good fun for the fish as the fisher. Shall I try to etch 
another little picture which must always stand side by side with 
thisof the poet as he has lifted it into the heavens for us of tender- 
ness and grace ? It is the picture of the way in which he was 
crushed down into the dust, who could soar so high, and in his 
despair caught at the things which seemed to be as strong wings 
to his noble genius, but which crushed him down in the end to 
the edges of despair and to death. All along, from that day when 
Nellie Kirkpatrick caught his innocent heart in the glamor of a 
song, and before Burns had been working with his brother Gilbert 
like a galley slave to keep a roof over the heads of the old father 
and mother and the family, the poor old father was getting past 
work and had rented a farm, because he could do no better, at a 
rent that meant murder as surely as if his landlord had put a 
knife into him when he signed the lease. I know it all by heart, 



BURNS STATUE. 21 

because I have seen it done. The boys tried to save the father, 
and Robert, as the elder son, took the heavy end. They gave up 
one farm and took another not quite so hopeless. The brothers 
were allowed what in our money would be about $35 a year, and 
had to live on about the poorest fare you can well imagine. Then 
the young man's head went down and his shoulders went up, and 
a fiend came and took possession of him — we call it dyspepsia. 
We find it in this plentiful land of ours, in the pie crust and what 
we call its " inwards." Burns found it, I think, on the empty 
platter. Then the poor fellow tried flax dressing. I was some- 
what intimate with the huckster, as we call them on our side the 
line, they were riotous, blustering, drunken blellums almost to a 
man, and I take it that was their character in Scotland. But in a 
little more than one year than the time which this picture covers 
of the deadlock with the wolf, and toward the end of it, the poems 
were written, with two or three exceptions, which have made 
Burns the peerless poet of the people. The poem, " To a Mouse," 
" The Cotter's Saturday Night," and others of the same noble 
genius, were printed by subscription in a book. The book car- 
ried him to Edinburgh, and if I have read his story to any pur- 
pose, that journey sealed his doom. Scotland in those days had 
fallen on evil days. Her strong life was like strong land that has 
been turned back into wilderness. You have to guess its quality by 
the splendor of its weeds ; and when Burns left the plow and went 
to Edinburgh he went where the weeds grew thickest. Burns never 
recovered from that visit to Edinburgh, in my opinion. In what 
he did that was bad before the folly was greater than the sin; but 
in what he did that was bad after the sin was greater than the 
folly. Before he went there he was capable of repentance, but 
after that I think he was only capable of remorse. There is a 
bloom on his life before — something of wonder and simplicity, 
like the round-eyed wonder of a child; but after that I see the 
bloom no more. The curse of knowingness is there in its place 
— the worst poison to my mind in the pharmacy of the pit. Two 
little pictures remain, and then the story of his life is done with, 
so far as I may touch it. He married Jeanie as we know, and 
got a farm on easier terms than his poor father ever heard of, and 
might have lived in all honor and esteem if his will then could 
have mastered his weakness. It was a fine, healthy life and the 



22 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

children were coming about his knees, while Bonnie Jean wor- 
shipped the very ground he stood on, and though the curse of 
drink was on him now he would never touch it under his own 
roof. We see him teaching the children when his day's work on 
the farm is done, and notice that he keeps up the good old custom 
of reading the Bible to them before they all go to their rest, and 
long after he was dead his son would tell you how no man could 
read the Bible like his father, and remembered how the tears 
would fall on the divine old book whenever he read the matchless 
threnody by the rivers of Babylon. (Then we sat down and wept 
when we remembered.) They would tell you also how he was 
never disturbed by their noise when he was writing, but let them 
carry on their racket to their heart's content (and I wonder how 
many ministers would do that in good standing); and how he 
would always talk to them in good broad Scotch, as if he consid- 
ered English as only a sort of second best, and would forgive 
them any thing in the world except a lie. That he could not and 
would not forgive. This is one picture — the other belongs in 
Dumfries. He has given up his farm and the end draws near, 
when the sad, troubled life must end and he must lie in the quiet 
place under the thistles. It was noticed there on an evening when 
there was a great gathering of the best people, as we should call 
them, to some festival, that they were streaming up on one side 
of the high street, while Burns was alone walking on the other 
side, and no man bowed to him or took the least notice- And 
when a friend said : " Robbie, are ye no' going to the play ? " he 
answered: " No, no; that's a' over noo; " and then half said, half 
sang from the old ballad: 

His bonnet stood ance fn' f.iir on his brow, 

His auld ane was Ijetter than money ane's new. 

and ended with the line. 

And werena' my heart liclit I wad dee. 

And death was at his door as he sang. There is a lovely story 
touching the last day. It was a week day, but the street where 
he lived was crowded with poor working men, many of them 
weeping, and when a stranger said to one of them in wonder 
what's the matter, he sobl)ed out: " Robbie Burns is deein, sir; 



BURNS STATUE. 23 

Robbie Burns is deein." And wlien one in the room with him 
drew the curtain against the sun, thinking it might hurt his eyes, 
he moaned: " Do no shut the sun out; I shall soon see him no 
more; " and so he died at thirty-seven, leaving Jeanie and the 
bairns destitute and desolate, and leaving us to ask the question 
we have to ask so often: 

" Is it true, O God, in heaven. 
That the noblest sufler most, 
That the highest sink down deepest 
And most hopelessly are lost. 
That the mark of rank in nature 
Is capacity for pain, 
And the anguish of the singer 
Makes the sweetness of the strain." 

But let me turn now from the story of his life to speak of his 
genius, and to notice how Burns sang for Scotland most sweetly, 
and how his genius is always at its best and noblest as it burns 
and flames in the heart of the peasant and poor farmer, the man 
of the people who made the people's life his own and struck his 
harp to the music of his own native land that the ])eople sj^rang 
from, who loved her and clung to her and were proud of her grand 
traditions, when the majority of those who were of " the rank which 
is the guinea stamj)," were doing all they coidd to merge Scotland 
into the vaster, and in the same sense, richer life of England. 
This was the feeling far and wide in what they called the upper 
classes when Burns began to sing for Scotland, while the peoj^le 
who tilled the land and wrought in the workshops, the lower 
classes, as they called them, held on to their old pride and glory, 
holding the thistle far above the rose, and more of the same mind 
to a man with one Scotchman who got into a dispute with a man 
from our side the border on the eternal question whether Scotland 
or England had brought forth the greatest men. And when the 
Englishman to close the argument said, "Perhaps you will claim 
Shakespeare for a Scotchman," the canny Scot replied: " Weel, sir, 
I dinna feel quite sure about that, but his talents might weel war- 
rant the inference." And of another, a ]joor laboring man, who 
went with an Englishman over the battlefield of Bannockburn: 
"Where you Scotchmen gave us such a skelping." He was a 
good guide and the Englishman wanted to give him a half a crown 



24 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

when they ])arted and Scotchmen do not object as a rule to half 
crowns, but this one said: "Nay, nay, sir; I canna tak' your 
money ; Bannockburn has cost you English enough already." 
" Hard hearted and warm hearted, cautious and cannie, douce 
and braw, pawkie and auld farrant or downward thrown "" as the 
humor might take him. Proud of his kirk and all it stands for 
and ready enough to say queer tilings about her himself, but then 
always ready to take uj) the gauntlet if an outsider said them, and 
holding his minister in all honor and esteem, but ready to rake 
him over the coals when he saw his chance. As when one of 
them, who had a very hard grip on the world, preached a sermon 
once about heaven, with its golden streets and gates of pearl, and 
how blessed a thing it must be to live there, one of his rustic 
hearers remarked as they went home: " I never knew a man so deed 
sure about heaven as oo'r minister, so loath to leave go of this 
world and gang there himsel'." It was to this heart of the peas- 
ant and artisan and the commonalty of Scotland that Robert 
Burns sang, and through them to yours arid mine, and they 
gave him a royal and noble welcome, and because he loved 
Scotland they loved him and filled the little street with weeping 
men as he lay waiting for death. The nobility and gentry, with 
but few exceptions, were willing to see Scotland become a mere 
tail to England's kite, as poor old Ireland has been so long — 
(rod save Ireland and let Gladstone live a hundred years. The 
Scotchman, the real manhood of Scotland, said: "No, not if it is 
all to do over again; we are ready for the fight; Scotland for ever 
England's equal and our own dear land." And so Burns sang: 

I mind it wee! in earl)' date, 

When I was beardless, young and blate, 

And first could thrash the bain, 
Or baud a yokin' at the pleugh; 
And though forefoughten sair eneugli, 

Yet unco proud to Iain. 
Even then a wish — I mind its power — 
A wish that to my latest hour 

Shall strong!}' heave my breast — 
That I for poor auld Scotland's sake 
Some usefu' plan or beuk might mni<e 

Or sing a sang at least. 
The rough bnrr thistle spreading wide, 



B URNS S TA T UE. 2 5 

Among the bearded bear, 
I turned the weeder clips aside. 
And spared the symbol dear. 

No nation, no station 

My envy e'er could raise; 
A Scot still, but blot still— 

I knew nne higher praise. 

He turned the weeder clips aside and let the thistle grow among 
the I)arley because it was the symbol of the grand old banner that 
had gone through so many battles for the nation's freedom from 
the great dominant power to the South. And this to my mind is 
the key to the genius of Robert Burns, the fire that burns in 
"Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," and touches his finest psalm of 
life, "The Cotter's Saturday Night," with a matchless beauty 
and grace and made him sing of all things Scotch as the bonniest 
and the best. 

The blackbird stra}', the lint white clear; 

The mavis mild and mellow; 

The pensive robin's autumn cheer, 

Thro' all her locks of yellow, 

The little harebells on the lea, 

And the woodbine hanging merril3\ 

He touches them all with his pencil of genius dipped in his 
heart's love and they are transfigured. The poem " To a Hag- 
gis " so caught my own imagination that when a fine old Scotch 
farmer, Mr. George Hope of Fenton Barns, invited me once to be 
his guest when I went across the sea, I said yes gladly, and then 
said, will you whisper to the good wife that I should dearly love 
to eat a haggis as they are made in Scotland ? Well, there it was 
in good time on the tabje and I ate my share of it eagerly; but do 
you know I have thought since tlien it would be hard to find a 
more splendid proof of the genius of Robert Burns than this 
which could so glorify a haggis — the hunger of his heart to so 
glorify Scotland that even a dish like that as you read the poem 
seems dainty enough to set before a king. So it is always. Burns 
is sure to be at his best when he touches the dear native land and 
sings as he talked to his children in good broad Scotch, " The wee 
bit ingle blinkin' bonnily. " Halloween, with its eternal charm of 
laughter and pranks and plays in the sheen of the ]Hingent peat 
4 



26 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

fire — what man who was nursed by one would not walk ten miles 
now to smell the reek from a peat fire? "Tarn O'Shanter," when 
Chapman billies leave the street and the lonely touch of relenting 
in his " Address to the De'il " — -which is the Scotch De'il, of 
course, as we can see in every line of the poem — I say it is the 
grand secret of his genius and its key. He loved Scotland with 
all his heart and thought her peerless fair — loved her as we shoud 
all learn to love our great and fair land — God Almighty's country 
for a poor man, as Dr. McGlynn said to me when we rode to 
Grant's burial, and no doubt believed what he said. He loved 
the land and the life from which he sprang, so strong and tender 
and true at its best. The poor in tlieir poverty, such as we can- 
not realize if we have not lived there, and deeper than his own. 
The gowan on the brae and the heather on the moor, the wild 
things that run and fly, and the very tramps and beggars at their 
revels — he took all things and all conditions into his great gen- 
erous heart, and they were all welcome. The nobleman who was 
noble indeed, like Glencairn, and the gentles who were true to 
their name and to old Scotland, and the priests who were worthy 
to wear the sacred robes, and great of heart and simple. Burns 
cast over them all the shining mantle of his genius, glorifying his 
own and doing more, as I think, for Scotland than ever Shakes- 
peare did for England. Burns loved to nestle down in her sweet, 
green places, and on sunny banks like Bonnie Doon, just as 
her larks do, and then like her larks to soar and sing under the 
canopy of her starry and sunny skies. (And so his loyalty to na- 
ture as he found her there, and his love for home and native land, 
and for his human kind, for men, and women and children, and 
all beside, makes him near to us all and dear forevermore, no 
matter what may be our nation or our name. And a right noble 
thing it is that you should set this noble semblance of the man as 
he looked when he lived among us on the earth, in this honored 
place to abide, as we may trust, through the generations and ages 
to come, and a nobler thing still to my mind that this should 
have come as it has come, the gift to your fair city from one 
who sprang from that humble but most noble life to which Robert 
Burns belonged and which he loved so well. 

And when your chairman sent me the little engraving of the 
statue, I said the man who has done that has caught the true 



Bi//^.yS STATUE. 27 

secret. This is not the presence of the poor broken man we fol- 
lowed to the old churchyard in Dumfries, it is all radiant with 
life, and that is now the true picture. For above all that is sad 
and sinful in the story of this man, there shines a nobility and 
beauty that is growing finer and purer to every new generation 
because whatever came out of his heart touched by the anguish 
of the divine fire that was in him and the love that hideth a mul- 
titude of sins, this is ours now, and always will be, the true Robert 
Burns, while all the rest will turn to dust and ashes, and will be 
found at last no more. And now, friends and fellow-citizens, our 
own great and good poet may well pronounce the benediction on 
my poor endeavor, and give a sacredness to your dedication no 
other man living can give. 

No more his simple dowers belong 

To Scottish maid and lover; 
Sown in the common soil of song, 

They bloom the wide world over. 
In smiles and tears, in sun and showers. 

To minstrel and the heather, 
The deathless singer and the flowers, 

He sang of life together. 

Wild heather bells and Robert Burns, 

The moorland and the peasant. 
How at their mention memor)- turns 

Her pages old and pleasant. 
With clearer eyes we see the worth 

Of life among the lowly. 
The Bible at the cottage hearth 

Has made our own more iiolv. 

And if at times an evil strain 

To lawless love appealing 
Break in upon the sweet refrain 

Of pure and healthful feeling. 
Still think while falls the shade between 

The erring one and heaven. 
That he who erred like Magdalene, 

Like her may be forgiven. 

And who his human heart has laid 

To nature's bosom nearer, 
Who sweetened toil like him or paid 

To love a tribute dearer? 



28 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

Give lettered pomp to tooth of time, 

So Bonnie Doon but tarr)', 
Blot out the epic's stately' rhyme. 

But spare our Highland Mary. 

Unfortunately for the best and most desired effect of the 
oration and the program arrangement, some one in the 
crowd about the statue accidently pulled a cord attached to 
the flag drapery, which partly fell exposing the head and 
right side of the statue. A murmur of delight and astonish- 
ment went up and all eyes were intcntl}^ fixed upon the clear 
and handsome features of the poet laureate of old Scotia 
and the bard of all the world for all time to come. The 
band took occasion at this unforseen and impromptu unveil- 
ing to softly play a stanza of " Ye Banks and Braes of Bon- 
nie Doon," after which the orator continued uninterrupted 
to the end. 

A change was then made in the order, and Rev. George 
C. Lorimer, formerly pastor of the First Baptist Church of 
Albany, was inti-oduced by Mr. Kinnear, and made a short, 
partly extemporaneous, address. 

Following Dr. Lorimer, Mr. Thomas Impett, a tenor 
singer of Troy, rendered the solo parts of " There was a lad 
was born in Kyle," the audience joining in the chorus. So 
far as possible the formal part of the actual unveiling of the 
figure was then proceeded with by raising little masters 
Malcolm Kinnear and Kenneth Ogden, all arrayed in tartan 
and bonnet, to where they could reach the beautiful emblem 
drapery and pull it down from those parts of the statue to 
which it yet clung as if loath to leave it. After which the 
indefatigible executor again came forward and made the 
appended formal presentation of the statue to the Washing- 
ton park authorities. 



BURNS STATUE. 29 

Honored sir, and Ladies and Gentlemen — In yielding up the trust 
committed to my care by the late Miss Mary McPherson, in her 
will dated March 14, 18S3, allow me to say a few words as to the 
donor, the goodly city which is to receive the gift and the men and 
women who are here to do honor to the occasion. First then the 
donor, she was of humble parentage trained to habits of industry 
and self-reliance in her early youth; while not exactly what is known 
m these modern times as a strong-minded woman, yet she had the 
full development of stern qualities necessary to worry through the 
battle of life successfully, and was of a temperament thoroughly 
practical. Neither she nor her brother would brook those around 
them who would not earn their own living. In the midst of this 
ploddmg life there was a silver lining, and it was in music and 
poetry, primitive in some respects, I admit, but still enjoyment, 
and she would take real pleasure in reciting or having others recite 
some of Burns' most humorous pieces. She was thoroughly ap- 
preciative of all that was good and great in her native land, and 
loved much to talk and ponder over the scenes of early youth. 
But with Albany and its early history they were also familiar and 
fully desired to identify themselves with it, hence the wish to per- 
petuate the reminiscences of childhood with that of old age. Com- 
bining the two together the result was the Burns monument which 
we this day look upon. 

Now, as to our dear Albany, the house of our adoption, how ap- 
propriate that a monument should here be raised to the sweetest 
singer of our ancient Albani (or Caledonia), and be assured, sir, 
that I speak the sentiments of every Scotchman in Albany, when 
I say that in dedicating this monument, they feel and desire that 
the honor shall be with their adopted city as much as with the 
land of their birth. 

The name of our good city was at one time the battle-cry of 
Scottish soldiers amid Scotland's battles, and the bugle call from 
Albany has again aroused the ancient spirit and the clans have 
gathered from the east and from the west, the north and the 
south — not to draw their swords in defense of kings and princes, 
but to do honor to one who has contributed more to Scotland's 
greatness than all the titled heads that ever reigned upon her 
throne. We meet here to honor him whom God did honor by 
the great gifts which he bestowed upon him. Not only Scotland, 



30 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

but tlie world does honor to Burns' memory. He wrote in advance 
of his age, and for all time, when he penned these stray lines for 
freedom: 

Then let us praj', that come it ma)'. 

As come it will for a' that 

That sense and worth o'er a" the earth 

May bear the gree and a' that: 

For a' that and a' that, 

Our toils obscure and a' that; 

The rank is but the guinea stamp, 

The man's the gowd for a' that. 

I now, sir, as executor of tlie McPherson estate, and in be- 
half of the Scotchmen of Albany, i)resent to your care as the rep- 
resentative of the park commissioners and througli them to the city 
of Albany, as by the provisions of the will, this statue of Robert 
Burns hereafter to be known as the McPherson legacy to the city 
of Albany. 

Hon. Abraham Lansing, in behalf of the park commission- 
ers, accepted the gift, and in so doing paid this tribute to 
the donor, and to the faithful executor. 

Mr. Kiniicar and Ladies and Gcntlcineii — I am requested by 
the board of trustees of Washington park to accept this statue in 
their name and on their behalf, witli all the obligation which the 
legacy of Miss McPherson imports; and I i^romise unhesitatingly 
for that board, and with entire confidence for its successors in 
office, that within the utmost possibilities of the trust which is 
delegated to them by law, it will be preserved and perpetuated to 
the citizens of Albany in accordance with the design of the gener- 
ous gift. 1 take pleasure in expressing to you, Mr. Kinnear, the 
opinion entertained without dissent by the members of the board 
that you have fully complied with the injunctions of this behest, 
namely, "to erect a monument worthy of" Robert Burns, "an 
ornament to the ])ark, and an honor to the land of " the donor's 
birth. I tender to you their congratulations on the successful result 
of your efficient and zealous efforts in that respect. And I trust 
and believe that in it the expectation and design of this legacy will 
be realized. That here, in the presence of this speaking likeness 



B URNS S TA T UE. 3 1 

of Scotland's renowned bard, the citizens of Albany, without regard 
to lineage, and for generations to come will not only be moved by 
a feeling of grateful acknowledgment toward their legator, but to 
renewed admiration and respect for the history and greatness of 
Scotland, which is the land of the birth of Robert Burns, not only 
but of Mary McPherson, and of a long line of enterprising and 
patriotic and distinguished men and women, who have been in the 
past, and are in themselves and in their descendants in the present, a 
most important part of the career of this city, and who are cher- 
ished and memorable as a most essential element in every step of 
its progress, its prosperity and its renown. 

Nor can I doubt that at the feet of this statue and in view of a 
work of art so admirable and expressive, amidst scenes and sur- 
roundings so suitable, Albanians and others who by their invitation 
shall hereafter participate in the enjoyment which this park and 
statue afford, will be prompted to new intimacy with all that is 
ennobling and elevating, as well as with that which is stirring and 
captivating in the verses of the bard, who more than any other is 
the poet of unaffected human nature and mankind; whose versatile 
genius enters i-nto the feeling of every condition of human life, and 
kindles with enthusiasm or moves with emotion the souls of both 
lettered and unlearned; who was justified in dedicating his poems 
to " the noblemen and gentlemen of Caledonia," and wrote " The 
Cottar's Saturday Night ; " who could create the scenes of " Tam 
O'Shanter" and pen "The Epistle to a Young Friend," who stirs 
the soul with the martial strains of Bannockburn, and fills the 
heart with the inimitable pathos of " Highland Mary"' and " John 
Anderson, My Joe ; " who, if he wrote broad Scotch for Scotch- 
men, wrote " Auld Lang Syne " for the world, and to Scotland 
surely, if not to America and the Anglo-Saxon speaking race, is 
the .Esop of its poetry and the Anacreon of its song. 

And now, ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens of Albany, hav- 
ing accepted this statue and this trust for your representative 
board, and thereby for you, you will agree with me that it is still 
due to this occasion that some word be spoken expressive of the 
gratification which you feel in common with the members of your 
board, and excited by the spirit, purpose and character of this 
gift to your park, and the manner in which the desire of Miss Mc- 



32 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

Pherson has been accomplished. It is now nearly twenty years 
since, by an act of the Legislature, and with the approbation of 
the people of Albany, this tract of land, then already devoted to 
public and burial purposes, was, in the language of the act, " set 
apart and devoted to the purposes of a public ])ark." Of all the 
city's enterprises and undertakings, during that period at least, it 
is the one from which its citizens of all ages, classes and condi- 
tions have derived the most satisfaction and enjoyment, and, ex- 
cepting their educational system, its privileges are those from 
which, among all their adventitious rights as citizens, they would 
most reluctantly part. It was a most happy inspiration of Miss 
McPherson's to set up here in this garden of the people the statue 
of a poet whose songs are " household words " in our domestic 
lives, and whose lyre is also attuned so wonderfully to the beauti- 
ful in the natural world. It was a generous impulse which di- 
rected that without limit of cost this statue should be made worthy 
of the man it represents, ornamental to the park, and an honor 
to Scotland, and it was a wise selection to place the execution of 
this behest in hands so capable. 

Much might be said on this subject which time will not permit, 
but you will join with me in saying for you that you gratefully 
appreciate the spirit of this noble gift, and that you commend the 
result of the efforts of those who have had it in charge as the 
perfect fulfillment of a munificent and patriotic purpose. And 
you will permit me to pledge for you, to those who now have this 
statue in their care, your encouragement and co-oi)eration in 
maintaining and preserving it in all its graceful outline and propor- 
tion for yourselves, your posterity and successors in all time. 

The grand old song of " Auld Lang Syne," its solo parts 
happily and expressively rendered by Mr. Impett, and the 
chorus, given as only Scotchmen can sing it, as they join 
hand in hand \vi' hearty grasp, was most appropriately made 
the closing act in the unveiling program. The bugle and 
the pipes sounded "fall in," "fall in," the procession re- 
formed, marched back over the return route through still 
larger crowds of spectators, gathered by rows of residences 



BURNS STATUE. 33 

gaily bedecked and festooned, were reviewed before head- 
quarters in Union Hall, and dismissed. 

But the festivities incident to the celebration of the event 
did not close with the conclusion of the unveiling program. 
In the evening a pleasant and appropriate entertainment 
was given in Union Hall before a large audience of resident 
and visiting Scotchmen, and their families and friends. The 
program included an opening address by Mr. Peter Kinnear, 
in which he paid a warm tribute of praise to the McPherson 
family and drew attention to their characteristic Scotch 
thrift that had made the monument and occasion possible. 
Hon. Wm. B. Smith, of Philadelphia, President of the N. 
A. U. C. A., and Royal Chief John Kinnear, of the Order 
of Scottish Clans, also made short addresses. Mr. Govan, 
of New York, still further entertained those assembled with 
Scotch readings, while Mr. Thomas Impett and Mrs. Olivia 
Campbell Shafer sang several Scotch ballads. The selec- 
tions of the former were " There was a Lad was Born in 
Kyle," and "A Man's a Man for a' that;" those given by 
Mrs. Shafer were, " Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon," 
".Whistle and I'll Come to You, my Lad," and " Tam Glen." 
Meanwhile at the Delavan another festal scene was pre- 
sented, where about ten o'clock Colonel A. A. Stevenson, of 
Montreal, headed a column of some seventy .specially invited 
guests and marched them to the spacious dining-hall of that 
hostelry. The south end of the room was embellished with 
an oil portrait of Burns, and varied plant forms behind 
which was an orchestra. Mr. Kinnear occupied the head of 
the table, and, after due attention had been paid to an elab- 
orate menu, inaugurated the formal part of the literary pro- 
gram, with a brief summary of the details of the inception 



5 



34 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

and carrying- out of the project now so near a joyous and 
successful termination. He then gave as the first toast of 
the evening, " Scotland," to which Mr. Charles J. Buchanan 
thus responded : 

Although we are met to honor the memory of Robert Burns, 
whose name and poetry are the glory of the world, all our minds 
revert to-night to the land which gave birth to this great Scotch- 
man, whose songs will be sung so long as lowly origin, honest toil, 
struggling existence and lofty aspirations are the lot of the greater 
portion of mankind. Were I to bid the most enthusiastic Cale- 
donian present to raise his hand, or the most ardent lover of 
Scottish institutions at this table to stand up, it would be difficult, 
in the inevitable rush and confusion following, to single out the 
individual claiming this favor. Modest as we all are, every one 
of us would promptly insist that there could be no possible doubt 
but that he was pre-eminently worthy of this marked distinction. 
That modesty, which so characterizes Scotia's sons and their de- 
scendants everywhere, and of which all of us freely partake, would 
make every one of us bow low to be thought thus deserving of 
and true to our mother country. 

This is right and proper. Nothing better distinguishes true 
Scotchmen at all times and in all places than their love of home 
and pride of birth-place. 

Caledonia was the name given to Scotland by the ancients. 
She was early inhabited by savages, consisting of Celtic shepherds 
and hunters, whose religion, if it could be so called, was Druidi- 
cal, and whose habits were so disorderly that they were called 
robbers To their Roman invaders, however, these so-called rob- 
bers, armed with naught but short spears, daggers and shields, 
offered fierce and obstinate resistance, and gave them a warm re- 
ception Agricola himself, at the head of a powerful force, was 
unable to complete the conquest of this brave and hardy people. 
The Romans wisely concludeci to abandon the attempted subju- 
gation of Scotland. Then followed the reign of the Picts for 
several centuries, which was succeeded by a union of the several 
Caledonian folks, and still later by the kingdom of Strathclyde, 
of which the renowned Arthur Pendragon was the sovereign. 



BURNS STATUE. 35 

After this came the Saxon conquest, under the leadership of Ed- 
win, who founded Edinburgh (Edwinsburgh). 

In about the year 503, the brawny Scots made their appearance 
and estabUshed a kingdom in Caledonia, [)eginning with the reign 
of Fergus. In 836 the Scoto-Irish, or Scotch, became the domi- 
nant race in the country, which from that time was called Scot- 
land. 

I need not, however, to-night, to refer more in detail to Scot- 
land's early history, wars, tumults and struggles, which are famil- 
iar to us all. Perhaps I ought not to mention, even in low tones, 
Flodden Field, which plunged all Scotland into mourning, and 
which to-day is universally regarded as the greatest disaster which 
ever befell Scottish arms. It would be ill-timed to do so, did I 
not mention in the same breath, Bannockburn, where, with a 
handful of men, Bruce routed and dispersed a large army. 

In the few moments at my disposal, rather let me indulge in 
some general allusions, leaving the naming of Scotland's transcen- 
dent virtues, the glorification of her heroes, the praising of her 
conduct through all her vicissitudes to those, who, a little later 
on, will entertain you right elo(}uently as to all these. 

Scotchmen to the manner born never forget their native coun- 
try, nor do their descendants ever ignore or belittle the land which 
gave birth to their fathers. 

Though the area of Scotland is not great, granting that her soil 
is sterile and bleak her climate, notwithstanding our interests and 
welfare now center on this side of the Atlantic, we always look 
longingly and anxiously across the sea and give loyal expression 
from the depths of our hearts to that glorious land whose sons 
have always been front and foremost in battling for both civil and 
religious freedom. 

" Land of proud hearts and mountains gra)'. 
Where Fingal fought and Ossian sung." 

Both the emblem and the motto of Scotland bespeak her origin, 
her soil, her climate and her peo])le. Only those who have not 
well understood either Scotia or her people have e^•er attempted 
to invade her territory or to wound her with impunity. All such 
attempts have invariably convinced the aggressors that figs could 



36 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

certainly not be gathered of Scotch thistles. Worse than useless 
have always been, and will ever be, all endeavors to encourage or 
promote seeds of anarchy, slavery or misrule in this remarkable 
country. 

In 1702 King William, anxious to secure the union of Scotland 
with England, seeing the obstacles threatening to defeat his pet 
scheme, wisely observed, " It may be done, but not yet." He 
knew of what and of whom he spoke. These few words expressed 
volumes of the intensity of Scotland's purpose, of the determina- 
tion of her sons to fight for and uphold her independence, and of 
the terrible obstinacy with which any untried and unwelcome in- 
novation has always been sure to meet in Scotland. The fervent 
desire of King William was fought, debated and considered until 
this union was finally consummated in 1707. The royal English 
assent to this treaty contained striking language, worthy to be re- 
peated now and here, and is as follows: " I consider this union as a 
matter of the greatest im])ortance to the wealth, strength and safety 
of the whole island; and, at the same time, as a work of so much 
difficulty and nicety in its own nature, that till now all attempts 
which have been made towards it in the course of above a Inin- 
dred years have proved ineffectual; and, therefore, I make no doubt 
but it will be remembered and spoken of hereafter, to the honor 
of those who have been instrumental in bringing it to such a liappy 
conclusion." 

The brightest jewel in the crown of Great Britain to-day is 
Scotland, and Scotchmen are the most loyal of the Queen's sub- 
jects. England is, however, well aware that this union, though a 
fact accomplished, is by no means a continuing certainty, and tliat 
Scotland, though a devoted member of the British Empire, will 
brook no misrule, but, on the contrary, retains all her old-time 
vigor and independent ideas. Whilst, also, this union has proba- 
bly been of advantage to Scotland, taken altogether, it has also been 
of real, lasting and equal benefit to England. The greater may 
include the less in this, as in other instances, but no so-called 
union or government can ever stifle that liberty-loving spirit of 
Scotchmen, which seems born of her soil and is part and parcel 
of her very atmosphere. Remember, my countrymen, it was an 
English growler who said that " The noblest prospect which a 
Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England." 



B URNS S TA TUE. 37 

Though said in earnest and in irony this was never true, and, from 
both the facts and circumstances of the case, always was and ever 
will be false. The noblest prospect ever seen by Scotchmen was 
to turn to their country's proud history. Whilst doing this they 
will surely reach the inevital)le conclusion that no nation has had, 
comparatively speaking, greater influence in advancing the world's 
civilization than their own, and that no people have figured more 
conspicuously in noble achievements, beneficial to the human 
race, than have they. 

Well might Macduff, beset as he was by difficulties apparently 
insurmountable, and by obstacles seemingly overpowering, have 
asked: "Stands Scotland where it did.'" The fact that she did 
so stand was nearly all that gave the avenger of Duncan the 
slightest hope in his doubtful situation and his then still more un- 
certain prospects. She did so stand then, and has so stood ever 
since. If there is a country in the world whose position it is 
never necessary to define in an emergency, that country is Scot- 
land. With all his pride, narrowness and arrogance, Dr. John- 
son uttered some truths as to Scotia's sons, and one of them was 
that much might be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young. 
Fortunate, indeed, has it been for English literature, art and civ- 
ilization that at least several Scotchmen were caught in their 
youth and taken within Britain's borders at an early age. 

Life in Scotland, outside of her great cities and universities, is 
ever so real and earnest, that it is no wonder that a joke was 
thought to be foreign to Scotch minds, and that it required the 
aid of surgery, sometimes, to be understood by them. This, too, 
depends somewhat both upon the joke and its would-be perpe- 
trator. Scotchmen are, however, as a rule, susceptible to wit un- 
der favorable conditions. 

Even her domestic animals appreciate the scenery visible from 
her lofty peaks. A Highlander tethered his cow upon the moun- 
tain side. His neighbor suggested that starvation would certainly 
overtake the animal in this high altitude. The owner replied : 
" She may get no muckle to eat up there, but she has a gran' 
view." And so, brothers, approach our mother country from 
whichsoever side you will, she gives us, indeed, a grand view to 
all, from all and upon all. Disasters have, I am sorry to say, 
sometimes overtaken her. There have been times in her history 



38 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

when lier future was botli uninviting and uncertain. Epochs there 
were when even her pipers could arouse but few followers. Her 
defeated clans sometimes well-nigh vanished from sight, but it was 
only to rise again when the emergency required it. Upon several 
occasions in her history it looked indeed as though individual 
nationality with her was a thing of the past. But when the smoke 
of battle cleared away, when her scattered sons again rallied, as 
they never refused to do, under her banner, it was always 
found that Scotland continued to stand firm and steadfast, just 
where she always did, and that, though her soil might be overrun, 
the spirit of her people was invincible. 

When Sir Walter Scott was seeking health and rest in a milder 
clime, feeling that his strength was rapidly failing, he hastened to 
return to his native country that he might die within sight and 
sound of the Tweed. The homeward journey was accomplished 
too quickly for his weakened condition, and he became insensible 
to the presence of his friends and relatives in London. When 
he reached Abbotsford, however, he revived among tlie old famil- 
iar scenes and faces surrounding him. 

So it is with us to-night. For the moment we forget both time 
and place, remembering only the occasion of our assembling and 
that we are Scotchmen. Standing as we do upon Scotch tradi- 
tions; surrounded by the grandeur of Scotland's heroic past; 
with no doubts nor misgivings as to her glorious future, we cannot 
do otherwise, at this time, than revive, recruit and refuse to grow 
old in Scottish memories. Though far from her borders, sur- 
rounded by all these reminders of her we love so well, we halt, 
look up to the stars, thank (Tod and take courage, resolving anew 
never to forget nor be unworthy of old Scotland, "the land o' the 
leal." 

" O Caledonia ! stern and wild, 
Meet nurse for a poetic child ! 
Land of brown heath and sliaggy wood ; 
Land of the mountain and the flood. 
Where's the coward that would not dare 
To fight for such a land ?" 

Hon. Neil Gilmour next made a patriotic response to the 
toast " America," while Deputy Attorney-General W. A. 



BU/^NS STATUE. 39 

Poste responded to " The State of New York." Mayor 
Maher was summoned to speak of the " City of Albany, " 
and spoke as follows : 

Afr. Chairman and Gentlemen — As natives and residents of 
Albany we have reason to be proud of our home. The oldest city 
in tlie United States commands, and we hope always will com- 
mand, the respect of its sister cities for its conservative, honest 
and public- spirited course. So well have its public interests been 
guarded that its credit to-day is as high as that of any city in the 
Union, and financiers from abroad eagerly purchase its securities. 
It has been said our people were slow in material progress. But 
with the impetus given to all branches of industry in our midst in 
recent years by the judicious investment of large capital by our 
citizens and the substantial improvement everywhere made in our 
buildings, streets and parks, old Albany has taken on a new aspect 
and with the vigor of youth keeps apace with the progress of the 
times. Its social standard has always been high. Our people re- 
fined, educated, peace-loving, observing of the law, need little 
police surveillance. The energies of our police are principally 
directed to the prevention and detection of crime by lawless out- 
siders. In religious and educational matters, Albanians have al- 
ways taken a deep interest. And a liberal hospitality for which 
they have been famous, and which is being perpetuated by our 
generous-hearted citizens insures to worthy strangers from every 
clime a warm and friendly welcome. These are a few of the 
things which make us justly proud of our city. And to our Scotch 
citizens who have always taken a prominent part in its material 
and social development much credit is due. Ever have they been 
among the foremost to promote every laudable interest. In the 
sacred ministry, in the legal and medical professions, in trade and 
commerce, in e\ery honest calling, their people have shone con- 
spicuously. Honest, capable, thrifty, benevolent and law-abiding 
citizens, we are as proud of them as we know they are of our good 
old city. 

A few of the speakers expected were absent, but their 
places were filled b)' other banqueters, who were pressed 



40 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

into the service. Ex-Senator McNaufjhton was assigned 
the toast, " The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns." The 
response of William H. McElroy to the toast " Scottish 
Literature," was one of the features of the evening. His 
treatment of the subject was as follows : 

Mr. President and Gentlemen — When I was a student at the 
Academy which crowns yonder hill, Friday afternoon was devoted 
to what were known as elocutionary exercises. And of all the 
"elegant extracts " which we boys employed on tliose occasions 
in our endeavor to witch one anotlier with noble oratory, none 
was more popular than the panegyric beginning, " Scotland ! 
there's magic in the sound. Heroes, statesmen, divines, do you 
want examples — wliere will you find them purer than in Scotland ?" 
To-night, as we come together, at the flood of this high festival, 
Memory hails me over her invisible telephone, and rising to 
respond to the toast that has been assigned me I hear, echoing 
down the corridors of time and of the Academy, " Scotland ! 
there's magic in the sound." Yea, verily there is. The lyre of 
Orpheus moved the trees and the rocks; but the bagpipes of Scot- 
land, more persuasive still, have brought together this goodly 
company. 

I am invited to discourse of Scottish Literature within the nar- 
row compass of an after-dinner speech! Seldom, I take it, is one 
summoned to cover as wide an extent of territory in as brief a 
time. To accomplish such a feat satisfactorily I would need a 
genius for condensation as great as that exhibited by those pro- 
fessors of penmanship who manage lo reproduce the Declaration 
of Independence upon a postal card. However, just as all roads 
lead to Rome, it is to l)e assumed that the toasts of this com- 
memorative hour are to be regarded, not as texts to which the 
speakers are expected to adhere, but rather as so many ])leasant 
paths leading to that niche in our planet's great Pantheon, which 
is sacred to the dear and deathless memory of Robert Burns ! 

Comparisons are odious, still I am tempted to hazard the asser- 
tion, that if the literature of Scotland was subjected to a competi- 
tive examination with the literature of the rest of the world, it 
would emerge from the ordeal as triumphantly as Robert Bruce 



Bi^KA'S STATUE. 41 

emerged from Bannockburn. How could it be otherwise, when 
he whose counterfeit in bronze was unveiled to-day, sprang from 
the loins of Caledonia? 

"Plato himself was an audience;" and by the same token 
Scotchmen are not to be accused of extravagance if they main- 
tain that Burns himself is a literature. But although the sun is 
the center of the solar system there is a vast deal of the solar 
system besides the sun. Their names are legion who go to the 
making of that vast and splendid aggregate, the literature of 
Scotland. We may fancy, as we celebrate here, that in some 
celestial bancjueting-hall of a star not too remote, the vanished 
Scotch authors whom we hold in affectionate remembrance, recip- 
rocating the compliment paid to their best beloved also are 
holding a revel. Who sits at the head of that table which I see 
"with my mind's eye, Horatio.-'" Surely it is the creator of 
the historical novel, the irresistible minstrel, the unrivaled 
story-teller who lo\ed his country with a love passing the love 
of woman, the great Sir Walter. At his right beams " pure and 
planetary," a pulpit light tljat shall shine with undimmed ray 
through all the ages, mighty scholar and mighty divine, Thomas 
Chalmers. There, whence comes the sound of laughter and of 
the rattling give and take of sparkling repartee, are clustered 
Jeffrey and Brougham and Horner and the other keen wits, in- 
cisive critics and illuminating essayists whose proud boast it was 
that they called the periodical into being when they launched the 
Edinburgh Revieiv. Ah the sharp lances of those Scotch reviewers 
what torment they brought to certain English bards ! In the near 
neighborhood of this galaxy is the " Blackwood " group, Lockhart 
Aytoun and above all " Kit North," who has made us love 
darkness rather than light because out of darkness he fashioned 
Nodes Anibrosiamc, Yonder, splitting hairs and philosophizing 
and formulating acute propositions in political economy sits a 
ponderous personality. " Fate tried to conceal him by nam- 
ing him Smith," but when Fate glanced at the Wealth of 
Nations she felt that it was as impossible to conceal Adam 
Smith, as it would be to sequester the historian and philoso- 
pher, David Hume, with whom we find Adam conversing. 
Sitting a little apart, talking to stout John Knox, we see one who 
growls and thunders, and anon roars as gently as a sucking dove; 
6 



42 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

this moment his eyes blaze with baneful lightning and the next 
they shine with ineffable sweetness; from his lips fall words bitter 
as gall, relieved by utterances sweet as honey. Surely this can be 
no other than the great iconoclast of his age, who fought the 
shams of modern life as valiantly as William Wallace hurled him- 
self against the foes of Scotland; the incomparable historian of the 
French Revolution, named by Emerson a trip hammer with an 
.F^olian attachment, Thomas Carlyle. As the feast progresses 
some one at the table refers to the bucolics of Theocritus and of 
Virgil. Whereupon, commanding the general attention. Sir Walter 
congratulates the company that one of their number is the peer of 
any pastoral poet of any age. Then Allan Ramsay blushes and 
bows, while his fellows fall to praising The (ientle Shepherd. 
There is a sentiment to Home on the toastmaster's card, and Sir 
Walter introduces it by remarking, while the tables resound with 
vociferous assent, that home is not sweeter than the noble tribute 
to its sanctity and charm which a Scotchman has rendered. And 
so, called to respond, James Montgomery repeats his undying 
eulogy: 

There is a land of every laud the pride, 

Beloved b}- heaven o'er all the world beside, 

Where brighter suns dispense serener light. 

And milder moons cmparadise the night; 

There is a spot of earth supremely blest, 

A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest. 

Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found ? 

Art thou a man, a i)atriot? look around , 

O, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam. 

That land thy country and that spot thy home. 

And now what a joyous turnult takes possession of the banqueting 
hall! Every man springs to his feet shouting an affectionate wel- 
come to a belated guest. How they cheer him, how they wring 
his hand, how they toast him, how they hang upon his words. It 
is Robert Burns, forevermore "the unwasted contemporary of his 
own prime" and where he sits — so the toastmaster declares with 
a generosity characteristic of the master of Abbotsford — is the 
head of the table. 

I have mentioned but a few of tlie many gathered at that fan- 
cied festivity, but for what a magnificent and varied store of prose 



//fTv'A^ STATiTE. 43 

and verse they stand ! Time and your patience would fail me if 
I attempted to call all the names on the long and shining roll. 
Taking another glance at the table we see Furgusson, whom 
Burns with the modesty of merit, named his " elder brother in the 
muses," and another poet very dear to the Scotch heart, the Et- 
trick Shepard; we see Hugh Miller, who found sermons or some- 
thing better than a good many sermons in " Old Red Sandstone; " 
and Allan Cunningham, whose "Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea " 
shall be admired until there is no more sea to wet the sheet; we 
see Motherwell, whose lyrics kindle the eyes and set the blood 
tingling; and Robert Blair, who executed a coi/p d'etat — robbing 
" The Grave" of its victory over himself by effectively discours- 
ing upon it; we see Dunbar and Pollock, and the corruscating 
Gilfillan, we see — but I must desist. Nevertheless, a loyal son of 
an Irishman before I desist you will bear with me, I am sure, if I 
point out yet another of the unseen banqueters. For no bard has 
more endeared himself to the Irish heart than the Scotchman 
Thomas Campbell, tenderly and impassionately singing. 

Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion, 
Green be thj' fields, sweetest isle of the ocean, 
And thy harp-striking bards sinjj aloud with devotion, 
Erin m.avonrnin, Erin go bragh! 

If it was not two o'clock in the morning I might endeavor to 
prove, before resuming my seat, that the literary supremacy of 
Scotland at which I have been glancing, was due largely to the 
general dissemination throughout that rugged land, of two things 
upon which a sound mind in a sound body are largely condi- 
tioned, to- wit: education and oatmeal. Something over three 
hundred years ago John Knox declared that there should be a 
school in every parish; long before that oatmeal was in every 
Scotch body's mouth; and never in her subsequent history has her 
schools or her oatmeal failed her. Mr. President and gentlemen, 
my toast was Scottish literature. But in reality, as I have already 
suggested, this occasion is monopolized by the toast — Robert 
Burns. Were it not past two o'clock in the morning I would beg 
permission to efface my own [)oor words with those beautiful and 
stirring lines, written for a similar occasion by the beloved Auto- 
crat. 



44 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

The toast is Burns — no need to speak 

The name each heart is beating, 
Each glistening eye, each flushing cheek 

In light and flame repeating: 
We come in one tumultuous tide. 

One surge of wild emotion, 
As crowding through the Frith of Clyde 

Rolls in the Western ocean. 

Though years have clipped the eagle's plume 

That crowned the chieftain's bonnet, 
The sun still sees the heather bloom, 

The silver mists lie on it; 
With tartan kilt and philibeg, 

What stride was ever bolder 
Than his who showed the naked leg 

Beneath the plaided shoulder? 

The lark of Scotia's morning sky ! 

Whose voice may sing his praises? 
With Heaven's own sunlight in his eye 

He walked among the daisies; 
Till, through the cloud of fortune's wrong, 

He soared to fields of glory, 
But left his land her sweetest song 

And earth her saddest story. 

The century shrivels like a scroll 

The past becomes the present, 
And face to face and soul to soul 

We greet the monarch peasant; 
Whose passion breathing voice ascends 

And floats like incense o'er us, 
Whose ringing lay of friendship blends 

With labor's anvil cliorus ! 

We love him, praise him just for this, — 

In every form and feature. 
Through wealth and want, through woe and bliss. 

He saw his fellow creature; 
No soul could sink beneath his love, 

Not even angel blasted, 
No mortal power could soar above 

The pride that all outlasted. 

I fling ni)' pebble on the cairn 

Of him though dead undying. 
Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn. 

Beneath her daisies lying: 



BURNS STATUE. 45 

The waning suns, the wasting globe 

Shall spare the minstrel's stor}', 
The centuries weave his purple robe, 

The mountain-mist of glory! 

The toast "Scottish Societies," fell to the lot of Chief 
Wilh-am B. Smith of Philadelphia; and in the absence of 
Mr. James Weymss, Jr., the worthy chaplain of the Albany 
St. Andrew's Society, Rev. William S. Smart, D. D., made 
a happy impromptu response to the toast " The Memory of 
St. Andrew." The "Lasses O," was gracefully responded 
to by Lieutenant-Colonel A. A. Stevenson, the kilted cava- 
lier from over the border in Montreal. Various extempore 
speeches from Surrogate Francis E. Woods, Corporation 
Counsel D. Cady Herrick, and others, followed the more 
formal program features. Literspersed with the toasts and 
responses were numerous appropriate musical selections each 
in harmony with the sentiment which preceded it, as, " Scot- 
land Yet," -Star Spangled Banner," "Yankee Doodle," 
"There was a Lad was Born in Kyle," "Green Grow the 
Rushes O." 

The enjoyment of this the f^nal feature of the day's festivi- 
ties was prolonged far into matin hours, but at last it ended 
as all truly Scotch gatherings do with a joining of hands and 
the singing of " Auld Lang Syne." 

During the intervals of the evening's exercises Toast-mas- 
ter Kinnear took occasion to read some of the letters he 
had received from distinguished persons at home and abroad, 
who had been unable to be present. A number of these are' 
appended. 



]^6:tte:r5. 



Sturtevant Farm, ) 

Centre Harisor, N. H., r 

A//gl/St 22, 1888. ) 

Peter Kin near, Esq., PrcsL St. Andrew's Society : 

Dear P^riend — -I greatly regret that I am unable to avail my- 
self of the invitation to be present at the unveiling of the statue 
of Robert Burns, on the 30th inst. I yield to no one in admira- 
tion and love for the great singer whose songs have girdled the 
world with music, dear alike to the highest culture and the lowest 
poverty and toil. A born democrat, his independent thought, his 
ardent love of liberty, and hatred of tyranny in the State, and 
bigotry and intolerance in the church, as expressed in his life and 
in his immortal lyric: 

" The rank is but the guinea stamp. 
The man's the gowd for a' that." 

Give him the right to stand among our noblest and worthiest. 
His songs of love and home and freedom are among the house- 
hold treasures of Americans, heard in our halls of wealth and 
fashion, and in the cabins of our miners and herdsmen, from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Me.xican frontier to the 
northmost Alaska. Scotland may well be proud of her most il- 
lustrious son, but she will not forbid our adopting him. We take 
him to our hearts as he is, with the failings we regret, with the 
noble traits and marvellous gifts we honor. Suffice it that he is 
Robert Burns, the only ! As such, if I may be allowed to repeat 
my words at his centennial : 

" Be every fault forgiven 
Of him in whom we jo}-, 
We take, with thanks, tlie gold of Heaven, 
Even with tlie earth's alio)'. 



48 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

Thanks for the music as of Spring, 
The sweetness as of flowers, 
The songs the bard himself might sing 
In holier ears than ours." 

I am very truly thy friend, 

JOHN G. WHITTIER. 

Beverly Farms, Mass., \ 
August si/i, 1888. S 

Dear Sir — I regret that it will not be in my power to attend 
the interesting ceremony of the unveiling of the Burns statue at 
Albany on the 30th of August. May I venture to recall these 
verses from a poem which I read at the centennial celebration of 
Burns' birthday, in Boston.' 

We love him, not for gifts divme — 

His muse was born of woman, — 
His manhood breathes in ever}' line, — 

Was ever heart more human ? 

We love him. praise him, just for this 

In ever}' form and feature, 
Through wealth and want, tiuough woe and bliss, 

He saw his fellow-creature ! 

No soul could sink beneath his love, — 

Not even angel blasted; 
No mortal power could soar above 

The pride that all outlasted. 

Ay ! Heaven had set one living luan 

Beyond the pedant's tether. 
His virtues, frailties He ma}' scan 

Who weighs them all together ! 

Yours very truly, 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



AsHFiELD, Mass., Aug. 25, 1S88. 
Dear Sir — I am sincerely obliged by the invitation to attend 
the exercises at the unveiling of the statue of Burns in Washing- 
ton park on the 30th of August, and I am very sorry that my 



BURNS STATUE. 49 

engagements prevent my acceptance. Were it possible I should 
gladly join in the tribute to the genius which still charms and 
touches the human heart, and which makes Burns not only, as 
your invitation says, the darling poet of Scotia, but of the English 
speaking world. x\s there is no truer poetic genius than his whose 
songs are as fresh and sweet as the morning, bright with the most 
rollicking humor and tender with the fondest affection, so the 
story of no human life is more pathetic than that of the singer. 
The lover of the daisy and the laverock and of sonsie lasses, stirs 
us in some ways which no other poet can surpass and in some 
which appeal to our profoundest grief and pity. No other man 
has done him such sympathetic justice as his countryman Thomas 
Carlyle who like Burns was born in extreme poverty without 
befriending circumstance or opportunity, and who, like Burns, 
proved to the world that a man's a man for a' that. As Auld 
Scotia recalls Burns and Scott and Carlyle she may well say, these 
are my jewels, and if we could know her very heart I suppose we 
should find it cherishing as the most precious of them all the name 
of Robbie Burns. 

Truly yours, 

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 

Cluny Castle, Kingussie, N. B., 
2nd August, 1888. 

My Dear Mr. Kinnear — Your invitation to be present at the 
unveiling of the statue of Burns in Albany comes to me when my 
feet are on the heather, and I am surrounded by the glories of the 
Highlands, and by the scenes and incidents of Scottish life, which 
he has immortalized. 

I rejoice that a city in the republic is to possess not only a 
creditable statue of Burns, but the best statue of Burns that I have 
ever seen. 

It is most fitting that the land of Triumphant Democracy should 
produce his best memorial. 

In your proceedings to-day the splendid old Scots woman, the 
donor. Miss McPherson, will not, I am sure, be forgotten. She 
must have been one of the class of typical Scots women to whom 
Scotland owes so much of its glory. She could not have left her 
money for a better purpose than to place among the treasures of 
7 



50 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

her ado])ted city in the republic, a histing memorial of the poet 
who sang the Royalty of Man. 

I am very truly yours, 

ANDREW CARNEGIE. 
Mr. Peter Ki/incar, Albany., N. V. 

Cambridge, Mass., Se/>f. i, i88S. 
P. Kinnear, Esq.: 

Dear Sir — I regret that a temporary journey caused delay in 
answering your polite invitation to the dedication of the Burns 
statue. I am always glad to aid in honoring in any way the mem- 
ory of Burns. No single influence did more to impress me for life 
with the true democratic feeling than the early reading of his 
grand song : "A man's a man for a' that." I can well remember 
that, when about twenty years old, I thought seriously of having 
it printed on a separate sheet, that I might make sure of its being 
read by every one whom I knew. It would have been a needless 
enterprise, but it shows how deeply the poem influenced at least 
one youthful mind. 

Very truly yours, 

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. 



Town Hall, Dundee, August 7, 1888. 

Dear Sir — I regret very much that my official duties quite 
prevent me from accepting your kind invitation to be present at 
the unveiling of the statue of Robert Burns, at Albany, N. Y., on 
August 30 next. I should esteem it a jnivilege to be able to visit 
your great country at any time, and especially to be present on 
the occasion of rendering fitting honor to the memory of one of 
the greatest, as he certainly was the most characteristic of Scots- 
men. 

We, in Dundee, a few years ago, erected a fine statue in his 
honor, as a duty — a debt of gratitude due to one who did so 
much for his country, for, of Burns it may be said, more specially 
than of any other Scotchman, or almost of any man who ever 
lived, that he requires no monument to perpetuate his fame. 

His works, dear to, and engraven on the hearts of his country- 



B URNS S TA T UE. 5 1 

men, are liis true monument more enduring than brass or marble, 
everlasting as the mountains of his native land. 

Greater poets there may have been whose writings will be en- 
during as his, but the works of no secular poet that I can think 
of, enjoy a fame so universal, and are equally appreciated by the 
cultured and the simple — afford at the same time delight to the 
scholar and the rustic, the high-bred lady and the village maiden. 

The position of Burns in this respect is altogether unique, but 
whilst this renders his fame quite independent of monument or 
statue, it does not in the least lessen our duty to his memory. 
Not then for any purpose of perpetuating or extending his fame 
but as tangible proof of his power over your hearts, and your 
gratitude to his memory, do I so highly value your statue, and 
earnestly hope for you a most successful inauguration. 
I am, dear sir, yours sincerely. 

WILLIAM HUN TER, 

Provost of Diiiulcc. 

68 Omslow Gardens, )_ 

South Kensington, 5/// August, '88. \ 

Sir — Although I hope to be in the United States toward the 
end of August, I fear that it will be impossible for me to visit your 
city on the 30th of that month. 

I regret that very much, as I always rejoice to see the people of 
the United States raising monuments to great authors and poets, 
who belong to them as much as they do to the people of this country. 

Although I am a Scotchman, it is not as a Scotch poet tliat I 
honor Burns. He is emphatically the poet of the poor; and he 
has done more than all the works or sermons on philanthroi)hy 
that ever were written to bring the rich and the poor into a com- 
mon bond of sympathy. Burns has taught us that the home affec- 
tions, the virtues, the aspirations and even the vices of the poor 
stand on the same plane as those of the rich. What exquisite 
pathos is contained in his poems ! " The Banks and Braes of Bon- 
nie Doon," "John Anderson my Jo," "The Cotter's Saturday 
Night," " Auld Lang Syne," knit together the affections and sym- 
pathies of the whole human race. Even at my advanced age I 
cannot read these poems now, without finding that my eyes are 
not only organs of vision, but that they are also fountains of tears. 



52 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

I congratulate your city — Albany — in which I have received 
much generous hospitality, on the occasion of the celebration. I 
wish that I could be with my Scotch friends at that time, but un- 
happily I have made other engagements. 

Your obedient servant, 

LYON PLAYFAIR. 
Peter Ki /I/tear, Es(j. 

Kent House, Isle of Wight, } 

July 2>Y, 1 888. f 

Dear Sir — I much regret that I cannot be in your old city on 
the 30th of August, when you unveil the monument to Burns. 

If Ayr does for Burns what Stratford-on-Avon has done for 
Shakespeare, in the guarding and proper exhibition of relics, and 
in making the birth and living place attractive and interesting, it 
will be largely owing to the Americans. 

America is a folio edition of what is best in Britain. There are 
probably more readers of the Scottish poet in the United States 
than in Scotland, and there is no place in tlie United States where 
he would more have wished to be honored than Albany. 
I remain yours faithfully, 

I-ORNE. 



Cacomia, Quebec, 6/// Ai/^^i/s/, 1888. 

My Dear Sir — I have just left Montreal for my summer holi- 
day. I regret much that I cannot be with you on the interesting 
occasion to which you have so kindly invited me. If love of our 
Scottish poet is the ground of invitation, you have made no mis- 
take. There may be much in the circumstances of Burns' life to 
deplore, and not a little in his life to condemn, but with all his 
faults we love him still, and give profound thanks that he lived and 
wrote. His writings have laid Scotland under a deep debt of 
gratitude. That debt, in spite of Pharisees, she keeps paying. 
Wishing a most successful gathering on the 30th instant. 
Believe me, yours sincerely, 

lAMES BARCLAY. 



BC/RNS STATUE. 53 

Tayview House, Newport, Fife, \ 
Aitgi/sf 10, 1888. i" 

Dear Sir — I wish I could have been with you on the 30th 
I shall be with you in thought, as will many other Scotchmen 
throughout the world. 

Burns is still with us all — singing to more people, warming 
more hearts than when he walked the earth. He died, only to 
rise again to a stronger, purer, nobler life. 

Two things I should have liked had I been with you to have 
spoken of. One is the importance of liberating the influence of 
Burns' grave association with our drinking customs — the poisoned 
arrows that laid Burns himself low. The other is the necessity 
for taking the stand that Burns took against the denationalizing 
of Scotland by the use of the terms " England " and " English " 
instead of " Britain " and " British " — as if Scotchmen were Eng- 
lishmen, and Scotland a mere PLnglish county. If Scotland be 
merely a part of England, she has ceased to be a nation; and 
Wallace fought and Burns sang so far in vain. There can be 
neither national poetry, nor national honor, nor national sentiment, 
without a nation. 

Let Scotchmen in America as well as at home see to this if they 
would honor Burns, and preserve Scotland and Scotland's nation- 
ality as a strength to the Empire and to the wider confederation 
of which the Empire itself may come to form a part. ]5elieve me 
ever yours, 

DAVH) MACRAE. 
Peter Kin near, Esq., Albany, N V. 

The British minister regrets extremely that he will be unable to 
attend the interesting ceremony of unveiling the statue of Robert 
Burns at Albany, on the 30th inst., more especially as it is the 
tribute of a kindred people to the memory of a genius so highly 
appreciated in his native land. 

Beverly, Mass., 7/// August, 1888. 

Dolus Hill, N. W., ) 

London, Aug. 15, '88. j 

The Earl of Aberdeen desires to express his thanks for tlie in- 
vitation with which he has been kindly favored, to be present at 



54 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

the unveiling of the statue of Burns, on the 30th inst. Lord 
Aberdeen regrets that he cannot be present on the occasion, but 
he begs to offer his best wishes for the success of proceedings in 
which, as a Scotcliman, he is naturally interested. 

Earnscliffe, Ottawa. 

Sir John Macdonald greatly regrets that his public duties pre- 
vent his acceptance of the kind invitation to be present on the 
occasion of the unveiling of the statue of Robert Burns on the 
30th instant. Nothing would have given him greater pleasure as 
a Scotchman than to have been present at this interesting cere- 
mony. 

\th August, 1888. 

II Windsor Street, ) 

Dundee, Scotland, r 

\2yth August, 1888. ) 

Dear Sir — Many thanks for your esteemed invitation. Very 
sorry that I cannot respond to it in person, but shall be with you 
in spirit. For, although oceans, politics and creeds may divide 
us, " we are one " in admiration, gratitude and love to Robert 
Burns. 

Had he never lived or never written, Scotland and the whole 
world of civilized men would have been immeasurably poorer 
than they are — not in material resources, but in the patriotic ar- 
dor, the independent spirit and the conscious rectitude that are 
the health and the strength of nations. 

His life and works inevitably tend to stimulate love of country; 
to sustain manly feeling; to dignify honest poverty; to awaken 
pity for distress, hatred for oppression, and scorn for hypocrisy; 
to cement the sweet ties of friendship and love; to cheer, to con- 
sole, and to elevate the hearts of men. As a national heritage 
they are simply jjriceless, and the people of other lands have 
borne warm and willing tribute to their worth. With what pith 
and power Fitz-Greene Halleck, the American poet, touches the 
chord of that far-reaching sympathy ! 

His is that music to whose tone 

The common pulse of man keeps time, 
In cot or castle's mirth or moan, 
;' In cold or sunny clime. 



BURNS STATUE. 55 

What sweet tears dim the eyes unshed, 

What wild vows falter on the tongue, 
When "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," 

Or " Auld Lang Syne " is sung ! 

Farewell ! May your gathering on the 30th be in every way a 
great success ! And should I be enabled to realize the dream of 
my youth and visit the shores of America, I am sure my steps will 
tend toward Albany, that I may behold the monument your city 
has raised to the undying memory of 

"A Poet, peasant born. 
Who more of Fame's immortal dower 
Unto his Country brings. 
Than all her kings." 

Sincerely yours, 

C. C. MAXWELL. 



Little Metis, Canada, 

Augusts., 1888. 

My Dear Sir — I beg to thank you for your kind invitation, 
but regret that it is not in my power to avail myself of it. It is, 
however, a source of much gratification to me, as to all Scotch- 
men and descendants of Scotchmen, that you should so do honor 
to the memory of Burns; and I regard it as an augury that the 
common literature of the British races, will be an influence for 
union and brotherhood stronger than true alien dinellent influences 
which in our time tend to separate the children of the same parent. 

Sincerely yours, 

J. WM. DAWSON. 



BiNROCK, Dundee, T^isf July, 1888. 

Peter Kiiiuear, Esq., Albany, IV. Y. : 

Dear Sir — You do me honor in inviting me to be present at 
the unveiling of the monument to Robert Burns in your city. I 
cannot be with you to see, but I hope that the demonstration will 
be a great success. I look upon the love and admiration of your 



56 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

citizens for our manly peasant poet as an indication tliat in spite 
of differences and clashing of interests, the time draws near 

" When man to man the wodd o'er 
Shall brothers be for a' that." 

Wishing you and your fellow-citizens a grand day for the cere- 
mony and much honest pride in the possession of the statue, 
I am, yours sincerely, 

JOHN M. KEILLER. 

4 West i8th Street, New York, 
Ith Aug., 1888. 

Dear Sir — I was gratified to receive your invitation to attend 
the unveiling of the statue of Robert Burns at Albany, on 30th 
inst., in accordance with the terms of Miss McPherson's bequest. 
I regret that it will not be convenient for me to be present on that 
very interesting occasion. Like most Scottish boys of seventy or 
eighty years ago, I was well acquainted with Burns' songs from 
my childhood. I have seen and conversed with our great poet's 
" Bonnie Jean." In 1823, she seemed to be about sixty or sixty- 
five, wore a " mutch " and a white apron over a printed calico 
gown, and had the appearance of a decent old family servant. 

Near Ruthwell was a place called "the Broso " (pronounced 
Broo). Here it was, in a small stone cottage with a thatched roof 
and only "a but and a ben " on the banks of the Solway Frith, 
that poor Burns lay ill, sick, and poverty stricken, indebted to the 
landlord of the Inn at the neighboring village of Clarencefield 
for a bottle of port wine to relieve his extreme weakness. This 
was just before he returned to Dumfries to die. I have often vis- 
ited the humble cottage at the " Broo " when going with the other 
lads from Ruthwell Manse to bathe in the Solway, which we some- 
times did when the snow was lying thick on the Cumberland hills 
opposite. 

I doubt very much if you will have any one at Albany on 30th 
inst. who has seen and conversed with " Bonnie Jean." Indeed, 
I suspect that no one now alive on this side of the Atlantic but 
myself, has done so. I am, my dear sir. 

Yours, very truly, 

WILLIAM WOOD. 

Peter Kiiuicar, Esq., Albany, N. Y. 



BURNS STATUE. 57 

Peter Kin near, Esq., Executor, 

Albany, N. Y.: 
My Dear Sir - It has been a pleasure to me to think for a 
ime that it was just possible I might be with you on the 30th inst 
but I am reluctantly forced to the conclusion that I cannot accept 
your kmd invitation to be present at the unveiling of the Burns' 
statue I rejoice with you in the accomplishment of the patriotic 
thought of our deceased friend. Burns wrote for the Scottish men 
and women of his day, but his thoughts will touch the hearts and 
awaken the impulses of all peoples, for all time, and the feeling 
that dictated the erection of your monument will meet with a 
sympathetic response in the breast of every honest man and bon- 
me ass.e Long may the Burns' statue stand to remind our 
children of hun who himself wrote : 

" Tliou of an independent mind, 
With soul resolved, with soul resiffned; 
Virtue alone who dost revere. 
Thy own reproach alone dost fear, 
Approach this shrine, and worship here." 

Very cordially yours, 

M.MV^UKEP., .,t„ A„g., ,8S8. '"'*■ ''■ Mcl-AREN. 

„ , ^.. Milwaukee, Aug. 26th, 1888. 

l^eter A in near, Esq.: 

Dear Sir -I regret exceedingly that I cannot be with you at 
the unveiling of the statue of our beloved poet, whose memory is 
dear to every son and daughter of Scotland 

Robert Burns was a modest, kind and unassuming man yet 
could clearly portray the passing emotions of the human heart 

n his Cotter's Saturday Night," he shows the early training 
of the Scotch at home, which would be well for the future general 
tions of our adopted country to follow. 

Had he lived to mature years, he would, no doubt, have shown 
a clearer insight into the Scotch character, but few have portrayed 
the peculiarities of their country more vividly than he has 

Although born in a cottage, he became a poet at the plow 
showing that It is not the occupation that lowers the man, but the 



58 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

man that degrades the occupation. The man who is moderate in 
his ambition, temperate in his habits and strong in adversity gets 
the most good out of life, so let us be blind to his faults and 
remember only his love of country and generous heart. 

Our countrymen will always appreciate Miss McPherson's 
desire to perpetuate the memory of the poet, and also her good 
judgment in selecting our worthy friend, Mr. Kinnear, to execute 
her wishes. 

I shall be with you in heart, if not in person. 
Yours sincerely, 

PETER McGEOCH. 

Albany, Aug. 28///, 1888. 
Peter Kinnear, Executor, etc. : 

Dear Sir — I desire to acknowledge the receipt of your invita- 
tion to attend the ceremony of the unveiling of the statue of Rob- 
ert Burns on the 30th of August next, and to thank you for the 
same. I am afraid that my official engagements will prevent me 
from attending, which I sincerely regret. 

No man proud of his country, its manhood and independence, 
can fail to have his sympathies and heart enlisted in the good 
work in which you are engaged. 

The memory of Burns will always be dear to him who loves 
liberty and his country, and who hates wrong and oppression, for 
he it was 

" Who kept his honest}' and truth. 
His independent tongue and pen, 
And moved in manhood and in youth. 
Pride of his fellow men. 

" Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong, 
A hate of tyrant and of knave, 
A love of right, a scorn of wrong, 
Of coward and of slave." 

I am truly yours, 

CHAS. F. TABOR. 



BURNS STATUE. 



59 



Deai, Beach, N. J., ) 
August 21th, 1888. f 
Peter Ki linear, Esq., Albany, N. Y. : 

Dear Sir — I have received your kind invitation to be present 
at the unveiling of the statue of Robert Burns, at Albany, on the 
30th inst., and regret that I will not be able to avail myself of 
the honor and courtesy thus extended. In spirit, however, I 
shall unite with you and all Scottish men and their descendants, 
in honoring the memory of Burns, and in paying respect to that 
of Miss Mary McPherson, by whose munificent legacy an endur- 
ing monument will be erected in the city of her adoption to the 
greatest poet of her native country. 

My memory goes back to the time when Lachlan McPherson 
and his family came to Albany from Scotland. By the aid of 
Archibald Mclntyre and my father, Archibald Campbell, both na- 
tives of Scotland, and both State officers, Mr. McPherson was 
made keeper of the old State Hall, now the Geological Museum. 
There he and his son pursued with industry and success their 
trade as carpenters and cabinet makers, John McPherson being 
an expert in the latter, and there in my boyhood I often saw themt 
as well as Mrs. McPherson and her daughter, Mary; and there 
many a kind turn I got in wood-work on electric and other ma- 
chines constructed while studying under Dr. Beck and Joseph 
Henry, at the Albany Academy. 

Lachlan McPherson was a man of strong character; of crreat 
shrewdness and sagacity; of considerable acquired knowledge, 
and possessed of a wonderful fund of humor and mother wit.' 
He was a favorite of the State officers of that day, including John 
Savage, John Van Ness Yates, Simeon DeWitt,'Wm. L, Marcy, 
Silas Wright, A. C Flagg, John A. Dix and others. Mr. Marcy 
once said of him that he had the tact and shrewdness to fit him 
for a first-class diplomatist. 

John McPherson, a modest and retiring man, was very accom- 
plished in his trade, well read in science and history, and kept 
himself well informed in the current affairs of his day. Though 
he lived to a great age, he was a confirmed bachelor, and he ex- 
pressed his decided opinion that " matrimony was a mere lottery." 

It is most gratifying to know that Miss McPherson, the survivor 
of her family, having no relatives here and no near ones, if any, 



6o HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

in Scotland, should, at the close of a long life, after some bequests 
to friends and to some worthy poor, have left the estate accumu- 
lated by her father and brother by years of honest thrift and fru- 
gality, for the erection of a statue to Burns in the city where this 
fortune was gathered, and where she had lived for more than 
sixty years, thus linking her name, in some measure, with the im- 
mortal bard of her native land, whose most famous ballad, '' A 
man's a man for a' that," was illustrated in the lives of her own 
family. 

Of Robert Burns, whose statue you are in a few days to unveil, 
it can with truth be said that no one of any country, and least of 
all one of Scottish blood, can call him to mind without the proud 
reflection that his genius and inspiring words have done much to 
establish the rights and political equality of all mankind. There- 
fore will his memory be ever cherished in our country, whose gov- 
ernment rests upon this firm foundation. 

I am, yours truly, 

ALLAN CAMPBELL. 



Dundee, August i^^/i, iS88. 
To Peter Kifuiear, Esq., Albany, United States : 

Dear Sir — I regret very much being unable to attend the in- 
auguration of the McPherson Burns statue on the 30th current, 
and the more so as I may be on your side of the water later on 
this year. If so, it will be a pleasure in store for me to see the 
beloved bard as erected and modelled by Scoto-American hands 
and brains. I may be allowed to remark further, that the inaugu- 
ration of this work has for me the greatest interest; partly as I 
have had, through your desire, the pleasure and duty to make in- 
quiries about Miss McPherson's connections and antecedents in 
her and my native country. Yesterday I examined the house in 
the hamlet of Gauldry-on-the-Tay, which was built by her father, 
Lauchlan McPherson's own hands. It is still in a good state of 
preservation, and has an unrivalled northern view of the river Tay, 
the Carse of Gowrie and Dundee. I plucked a few humble flowers 
from the garden — the original roots of which might have been 
planted by Mary herself. I inclose the flowers herewith, as a 
memento of the old house. 



BURNS STATUE. 6i 

An old lady, Miss Mary Farmer, is still living next door, who 
was a companion of Miss McPherson's in her youth, and she bore 
witness to the sterling, upright character of the father and family, 
and from what I learned, there is little wonder that they prospered 
in America. 

" From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad." 

From my former residence in your midst I might claim myself 
as an Albany boy. At any rate there is no one I know who has 
claims of a closer connection between yourself, the town of Albany 
and the patriotic dame whose gift has created this pleasant occa- 
sion. I desire, therefore, to convey from myself and all concerned 
with the McPherson connection on the banks of the Tay, a right 
hearty congratulation for the success of this alliance of the fame 
of Scotland's darling son with the old Scotland name of Albany. 

The name of your honored town was the battle-cry of our soldiers 
m Scotland's ancient battles, and on the occasion of this peaceful 
demonstration in honor of her patriotic bard, we join with you 
and all your friends in again raising the slogan cry of her clans. 

"Albany! Albany! Our country! Our country! " 
Yours respectfully, 

ALEX. GILCHRIST. 

Milwaukee, August 20, 1S88. 
Peter KiHfiear, Esq., C/iainnan, Albany, N. Y.: 

Dear Sir — It is with heartfelt regret that I find myself com- 
pelled to decline your kind invitation to be present at the unveil- 
ing of the statue of Robert Burns, on the 30th inst. 

You kindly ask me in case of my inability to be present, to for- 
ward a response suitable to the occasion. 

This is no easy task. The place, the representative men ]ires- 
ent, the hallowed and inspiring associations of the day, will all 
combine to make the occasion one of unusual interest to every 
lover of true genius and especially to every Scottish-American. 

The names on your committee strike the ear, like the roll-call 
of a gathering on the shores of Loch Lomond, or under the shadow 
of dark Lochnagar. 

Your beautiful city took its name from a Stewart, and a portion 
of our native land was called Albany a thousand years ago, there- 



62 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

fore, when a MacPherson willed, and a Kinnear and a Calverley 
executed a statue to Scotia's ploughman poet, to be erected in 
your city, it was only adding new strength to the great historical 
chain which has so long united the ancient Capital of the Empire 
State, with the still more ancient Albania of the middle ages. 

The clans, then, as they gather on the 30th of August, from the 
valley of the Mississippi, the shores of the Great Lakes and the 
Banks of the St. Lawrence and the Hudson, may well feel that 
they are not strangers in a strange city, but that they have a claim 
to, and will receive a hearty welcome, more especially as they 
gather not to engage in some ruthless foray, or to celebrate the 
triumphs of diplomacy or war, but to dedicate a monument to the 
immortal genius of the people's greatest poet, and to perpetuate 
the luster of a name which has ever been associated with the inde- 
pendence and brotherhood of man, principles on which the foun- 
dations of this great Republic were laid at the very time the poet 

walked 

in glory and in jo}^ 

Behind his plough upon the mountain side. 

Be assured I cannot sufficiently express my deep regret that I 
am not permitted to be one of that vast concourse, who will 
gather from all parts of this great continent, to do honor to the 
matchless genius of " the greatest poet who ever sprang from the 
bosom of the people and lived and died in humble condition," and 
to do honor to the memory of that noble lady who honored herself 
and her city by honoring him who will live in the affectionate 
remembrance of men, so long as they continue to treasure the 
hallowed memories of the days of Auld Lang Syne. 
Yours, very sincerely, 

JOHN JOHNSTON. 

North Platte, Neb., \ 

\c^fh August, 1 888. f 
Peter Kinnear, Esq., Albany, N. Y.: 

Dear Sir — Accept my thanks for your kind invitation to be 
present at the unveiling of the statue of " Scotia's darling poet," 
in Washington park, Albany, on Thursday, Aug. 30. 

As a member of the Kilmarnock Burns Club, I was one of the 
originators of the monument and statue moveinent there, and was 
present at the laying of the foundation stone of the one, and the 



BURNS STATUE. 63 

unveiling of the other — never to be forgotten incidents in my 
somewhat checiuered life. 

Had circumstances permitted, I would have gladly availed 
myself of this opportunity of still further honoring the memory of 
my gifted countryman, but, although absent in body, I shall be 
present in spirit, and trust the ]:)roceedings will tend to make the 
Scotch abroad more intensely Scotch, and bind them more to 
Scotland. Also, that their motto ever shall be " upward and 
onward," and that they may long continue to be considered a 
desirable acquisition to the population of this great Republic, for 
it is indisputable that many eminent Americans of the past, as 
well as of the present, have sprung from ancestors who hailed from 
"The land of the mountain and the flood." 

Independent of nationality, the name of Burns seems in these 
times to create a universal bond of brotherhood among all who 
have taken in the spirit of his poetry and songs. As for myself 
I yield to none in my admiration of his poetic genius, manly senti- 
ment and sturdy independence, and when the statue in Washing-, 
ton park is unveiled, I trust every freedom-loving American liel 
Scot will gaze with admiration upon the image of a man who 
claimed kin with all humanity and was deeply interested in the 
cause of liberty and the rights of human nature. 

Yea, upon one whose warmest sympathy went with the pioneers 
of freedom during the struggle for American independence, and 
also with the infant republic of France, who during his day, so 
valiantly strove for liberty. 

With the exception of Shakespeare no man could depict the 
tender passion in all its phases, or rural life and scenery like Burns 
— but lest this letter assume the proportions of a lecture I close 
by again thanking you for your kind invitation, and stating that I 
feel proud that my name is still known to my countrymen, and 
that my contribution to Burns literature is appreciated by them. 

The land of Burns, I fear, I shall never see again, but never- 
theless, 

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, 

And fondl)' broods with miser care; 
Time, the impression stronger malvcs, 
As streams their channels deeper wear. 

I have the honor to be sir, your obedient servant, 

ARCHIBALD R. ADAMSON. 



64 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

The Dundee Burns Club, 7 Ward Road, ) 
Dundee, Aug. 4, 1888. ) 

Dear Sir — You will please tender to your committee the thanks 
of the members of the Dundee Burns Club for their kind invita- 
tion to attend the grand demonstration on the occasion of the 
unveiling of the statue of Robert Burns, in your city of Albany, 
on the 30th of August next. Unfortunately there is none of the 
members in a position of sufficient leasure at present to take a trip 
across the Atlantic, but as far as inclination goes not a single 
member, ordinary or honorary, would be absent if it were possible 
for him to attend. The ocean race horses have reduced the pro- 
portions of the broad ocean considerably, but it is yet all too vast 
to admit of the personal intercourse and the pleasant interchange 
of feeling and sentiment betwixt the Scottish and Scottish-Amer- 
ican societies, which would be desirable at such an interesting and 
notable event. All they can do is to waft you across the waves 
their hearty congratulations and their sincerest wishes for the 
completest success to all your arrangements. You must accept this 
letter in a symbolical sense as sprig of white heather, which as 
you must be aware, would be an assurance of good fortune on the 
auspicious day, and they hope as such that it will become sweetly 
fragrant to you with memories of the old homes in the old land. 

The members have noticed with particular pleasure that the 
funds for the statue of the poet were bequeathed to the city by a 
Scotchwoman — Miss Macpherson — and also that the committee 
arranged for the purpose of carrying out the details is composed — 
if names are any indication — of Scotchmen through and through. 
These matters are just as they ought to be. Admiration for the 
genius of Burns is not confined to Scotchmen, and the works and 
the man himself were gifts not only to Scotland but to humanity 
at large ; yet it seems not altogether clanish to affirm that those 
who best can do homage to the memory of the Bard by training, 
language and sympathy, are the natives of his own land ; his near- 
est and dearest, the members of his own household. Surely no 
one better than Scotchmen can get to the heart of the poet. 
Surely no one can understand better his life's purpose. Surely 
no one can better value his genius or more sincerely mourn his 
untimely end. 

The members cannot forget, however, that while the erection of 



BURArS STATUE. 65 

your statue is entirely due to Scottish fervor of feeling, that it is 
notable that the statue will be raised in one of the centers of 
American life. There, the statue of a poet such as Burns, will cer- 
tainly not be out of place. Remembering his early repul)lican 
tendencies, his love of freedom and fraternity throughout, and 
the measure of contumely which in his life-time he had to bear in 
consequence, it is a peculiarly graceful and fitting act to raise his 
image in the midst of a people who have chosen for themselves a 
form of government which, with all its faults, is as yet the most 
perfect realization of the democratic ideal. Dear as were the old 
towns and the old life of Scotland to Burns, they fancy if the 
artist of your statue, in addition to the perfection of his work as 
a piece of art and a correct representation of the poet could, like 
another Pygmalion, endow with life the labor of his hands, the 
feelings of the re-born poet would not altogether be that of 
disappointment when he looked around. Probably he would miss 
a great deal; but the absence of caste and restraint, and the free- 
dom from prejudice which pervades the American atmosphere, 
would more than reconcile the poet to his new surroundings where 
his highest hopes and brightest fancies are being translated into 
fact. The heroes of American Independence are sacred person- 
ages to American hearts; but it is to be hoped that there is still 
room left in their affections for one who was pre-eminently the 
poet of independence, but who was also the poet of brotherhood, 
or as Whitman puts it, of comrades. May his songs of fraternity 
be for the healing of the discord of the nations, and may the 
statesmen of all countries sit at his feet and learn wisdom. 

Signed in behalf of the Dundee Burns Club, 

JAMES YOUNG GEDDES, 

ffo/i . Member. 

To Peter Kin near, Esq., Executor. 

The Burns Association of Philadelphia, Pa. 
To Peter Kiimear, Esq., Surviving Executor of the Will of Miss 
Mary McPherson, Greeting : 
All honor to the memory of the woman who has so practically 
distinguished herself by the most enduring method of perpetuating 
the memory of Scotland's great poet, Robert Burns. In him the 
9 



66 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

lyric literature of Scotland has its great representative. He lives 
with us to-day, because of the truth and life that are in his writ- 
ings. The secret of his enduring fame is the life that is in his 
work, it touches the human at every point, and reflects it as the 
mirror the human countenance. He is, indeed, the poet of the 
centuries; by his subhme searching and truthful utterances he has 
widened the horizon of human thought, and made us better known 
to ourselves. His pathos has given us a deeper power to feel, his 
patriotism a keener love of country. Although he was local and 
obscure in his life here, he is to-day one of the best known and 
most widely indorsed men of our time. Halleck, Longfellow 
Bryant, Whittier, Emerson, Bruce and Curtis, distinguished men 
of our own America, have done honor to themselves in recogniz- 
ing his greatness. Albany is to be congratulated as the only city 
in the world having a statue of heroic size in bronze by means 
supplied by a woman. The memory of Miss McPherson, the 
Scottish maiden, shall be held in high regard long after the monu- 
ment has ceased to be. 

Of the executor, Peter Kinnear, we need say nothing; the 
monument will constantly tell the story of his energy, faithful- 
ness and ability in carrying out the wishes of her who wisely se- 
lected one so honest and capable. The Association of Philadel- 
phia envy Albany her distinction, her great gathering to-day 
called together by a woman, through her e.xecutor, to unveil a 
statue to the poet that we all love. True he was a ploughman, and 
a good one; but he turned straighter and deeper furrows in the 
fields of thought than he ever did in the fields of earth. 

EDWARD WHITE, 

President. 

GEORGE GOODFELLOW, 
Secretary. 

JOHN SHEDDEN, 

Cor. Secretary. 
August 28, 1888. 



BURNS STATUE. 



67 



On the 9th of the following October the Board of Park 
Commissioners adopted the following resolutions : 

Rcsoh't'd, That the trustees of Washington jjark hold in highest 
esteem the generous citizenship of the late Mary McPherson, as 
shown by that provision of her will which directs that, out of the 
estate, and subject to the approbation of this board, a suitable 
and worthy statue of the poet Burns should be placed in Wash- 
ington park as " The McPherson legacy to the citizens of Albany." 

Resolved, That we desire hereby to place on record an expres- 
sion of our sense of the gratitude due to her memory, from us, as 
a representative board, and from the citizens of Albany for that 
discerning and generous act. 

Resolved, That in the judgment of the members of the board, 
the statue which was placed in the park and publicly delivered 
into our custody by her executor, on the 30th August, 1888, in 
fidfillment of Miss McPherson's bequest, is a work of art of the 
highest merit, and an acquisition to the park of the greatest value. 

Resolved, That the thanks of this board are due, and are hereby 
tendered, to the executor, Mr. Peter Kinnear, for the zealous and 
intelligent manner in which he has fulfilled the trust reposed in 
him by Miss McPherson's will. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be presented to Mr. 
Kinnear, as the representative of Miss McPherson's estate. 




Mcpherson arms. 



THK COMMITTKKS. 



George Hendrie, 
James McLaren, 
John McEvvan, 
James McCredie, 
William Riddick, 



ARRANGEMENTS. 
Allan Gilmour, Chah-in, 
William McDonald, 
Walter McMurray, 
Archibald Mclntyre, 
David Douglas, 
John Kirkpatrick, 



John Thompson, Sen. 
James Hart, 
Robert Mitchell, 
Thomas H. Scotland. 



Walter McEwan, 
Wm. S. Mitchell, 
W. S. Pattison, 



RECEPTION OF GUESTS. 

J.N. Foster, Chairuiaii . 



Wm. McEwan, 
Ale.xander Strang;, 
John Scotland, 



H. C. Kinnear, 
Donald McCredie. 



Charles Brooksby, 
Daniel Thompson, 
Robert M. Ross, 



PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT. 

.\ndre\v McMurrav, Cliairinan. 

Alexander McMurray, Wm. Bruce, 

David R. Stewart, George Welsh. 

John Thompson, Jr., 



Donald McDonald, 
Robert C. James, 
George G. Davidson, 



Samuel Shaw, 
George Hendrie, Jr. 
John Cochran, 



Hon. Neil Gilmour, 
Charles J. Buchanan, 
Capt. A. C. Bayne, 



ON UNVEILING. 

Thomas McCredie, Chnirmar 

James McNaughton, 
Robert Bryce, 

CALEDONIANS. 

Hamilton Sherwood, 
James McCombe, Jr., 

ON BANQUET. 

James Lawrence, Chairrtiat. 
William Grey, 
Benjamin Lodge, 
Duncan Campbell, 



C. C. Mackay, 

D. M. Kinnear. 



John Armstrong, 
Alexander Hyslop. 



J. F. Montignani, 
Walter Dickson. 



Peter Kinnear, Executor, President of St. Andrew's Society. 
Ex-ojficio member of each Committee. 



